In most volumes on the South Seas the chapter which I am about to write would be omitted. I mean to say that we have reached a point in my narrative in which the status of our relations with the Filbertine women, as such, must either be discussed frankly and openly, or treated in the usual tongue-in-cheek fashion which seems to be the proper thing with English and American writers.
I have looked them all over carefully (the writers, I mean), and find them divided into two categories, those who take their wives along as a guarantee of virtue, or those who are by nature Galahads, Parsifals and St. Anthonys. This latter group is to me particularly trying. They revel in descriptions of desirous damsels with burning eyes who crave companionship, but when an artfully devised encounter throws one of these passionate persons across the path of the man behind the pen, does he falter or swerve or make a misstep? Never. Right there is where the blood of the Galahads tells. Supremely he rises above temptation! Gracefully he sidesteps! Innocently he falls asleep!
I don't believe a word of it. I think it's just a case of literary men sticking together.
Two days after the Grand Banquet described in the last chapter, Whinney, Swank and I awoke with a sigh of simultaneous satisfaction, completely rested and restored. Ten minutes later we were engaged in a brisk debate in which the question before the house was, stated boldly, Should we or should we not "go native?" In other words, should we hold ourselves aloof, live contrary to the customs of the country and mortally offend our hosts,—to say nothing of our hostesses,—or should we fulfil our destinies, take unto ourselves island brides and eat our equatorial fruit, core and all?
For the purpose of discussion Whinney was designated to uphold the negative, and for an hour we argued the matter pro and con. Whinney advanced a number of arguments, the difference in our nationalities, our standing in our home communities (which I thought an especially weak point), our lack of a common language, and several other trivial objections, all of which Swank and I demolished until Whinney got peevish and insisted that he and I change sides.
I spoke very seriously of the lack of precedent for the step which we were considering and of what my people in Derby, Conn., would say when they learned that a Traprock had married a Filbert. Swank replied with some heat that he didn't believe that anything could be said in Derby that hadn't been said already and Whinney was much more eloquent on the affirmative than he had been on the negative. Finally when I thought we had talked enough I said—
"Well, gentlemen, are you ready for a ballot?"
"We are," said Swank and Whinney.
"Remember," I warned, "The green nuts are for the affirmative,—the black ones for the negative. Secret ballots, of course."
Wrapping our votes in metani leaves we dropped them in the ballot shell. Whinney was teller. It was an anxious moment until he looked up and said with a hysterical quiver in his voice: