A few days before Grimes and I had dressed him up in European clothes, for it was his ambition to wear a white collar and trousers. I fastened an old india-rubber collar round his full throat with much difficulty. “Keep still, will you!” I had to keep yelling as he tried to stop dancing with delight at having that white ring round his terra-cotta throat. When he was finally dressed up and I added an old silver watch and a brass chain to his equipment, his handsome face was flushed with joy and excitement.
“Joranna! me love you!” he shouted as he gambolled like a puppy on the slope.
“You great white man now, Hermionæ,” said I. He rushed off and looked into the clear water of the lagoon, and nearly swooned with joy as he sighted his checked trousers!
“Me marry nice white womans?” was his first ambitious comment.
“Well, yes,” said I dubiously.
“But you no got money, Hermionæ,” I continued, looking at his handsome face. But he was so infinitely more attractive than some of the pimply, dough-faced beings that women have to marry that I added: “Hermionæ, you go England, great English whyniees [ladies] fall at your feet.”
“Ah, but all white papalagi married, eh?”
“Yes, most of them, Hermionæ; but you never mind, you be ‘Don Juan.’”
“What Don Joo-an?” he responded, opening his fine eyes wide.
Then I explained: “You be great Marquesan chief, all ladies look at you and say: ‘O handsome Hermionæ, we love you, we love you! How beautiful you are!’ Then you fall into their arms, kiss them like this.”