“How do you know?” I said in surprise, for I had never even been approached on the subject of selling my boat.
“I will ask them to buy it,” she replied, with a smile. “I will go to them now, if you wish. How much money do you want?”
“The boat is worth two hundred dollars, but I will take one hundred. If they cannot give me one hundred dollars I will take no less—but because they and I are good friends, I will give it to them freely, for it will be of no further use to me.”
“They will buy the boat,” she said confidently, and lighting her cigarette, she went out.
A quarter of an hour later she returned, accompanied by old Kaibuka and another head man. Each of them carried a small bag of money, which they handed to me, and simply observing that it was the price of the boat, sat down and waited for me to count the coins. I found there were two hundred dollars.
“There are one hundred dollars more than the price I asked,” I said, pushing one-half of the money apart. “The boat is well worth the two hundred; for she is but new, and cost me more than that. But one hundred is all I asked for.”
Hawk-eyed Kaibuka—one of the most avaricious old fellows I had ever met with in the South Seas—shook his head and said I was trying to wrong myself. The people would be glad to get such a fine boat for two hundred dollars, and that if he and the other head men announced that I had parted with her for a hundred dollars, the entire population of Utiroa would arise as one man and curse them as mean creatures; also they (the people) would refuse to use the boat, and he, Kaibuka, would be regarded as a hog—a man devoid of gratitude to the white man who had been kind to and had not cheated them.
“Take the money, Mr. Sherry,” said Niàbon in English; “they are glad to get the boat; and if I had said you wanted five, instead of one hundred dollars, they would give it. I would make them give it.”
“Very well, Niâbon. I'll take it. But as it is more than I ought to expect under the circumstances, I will give them half a tierce of tobacco as a mea alofa (a gift of friendship).
“That means that you give them a hundred and twenty-five dollars' worth of tobacco as a present,” she said, with an amused smile, “and so you sell your beautiful boat for seventy-five dollars.”