A WARLIKE TALE FROM THE PACIFIC.
(Fragment from the Possible Diary of a Realistic Novelist.)
Well, now I think I have got matters pretty straight. The question is, whether the Baron will accept my last message as chaff, or resent it. Let me see, how does it read—"It is suggested, for the President's consideration, that rumours uncorrected or unexplained acquire almost the force of admitted truth." Quite so—so they do. Let me see—"That any want of confidence between the governed and the Government must be hurtful"—well, to us both. Yes! That's all right. So it will! Lastly, "That the rumours, in their present form, tend to damage the white races in the native mind, and to influence for the worse the manners of the Samoans." Now, that ought to fetch him! A wink is as good as a nod to a blind pig! However, he is quite ass enough to do nothing! Everybody saying that he is going to blow us all up, himself included! Why it's enough to make the natives rise and kill every white man in the place. Still, good idea for a story.
Later. The idiot! Instead of promptly denying the facts, he says he won't have anything to do with us, because "we care so little for the correctness of the facts we deal with." We only asked for information. Are we going to be blown into smithereens, or are we not? That's the point, and he won't tell us! Wants to know what business it is of ours? The situation is decidedly dramatic—but unpleasant!
Later Still.—Have replied that "the matter very much concerns us." Tell him, we wrote, not for protection, but for information. "Are we going to be blown up, or are we not?" An answer will oblige.
A Little Later.—No, he is not to be drawn. Won't swerve an inch. So now we are trying another dodge. Will he resign his dual office? He says he will resign one. But he knows that won't do. If he remains chief adviser to the King, we shall be nowhere. His last idea is to resign the Presidentship of the Municipal Council. Why, we are the Council, and we should have kicked him out if he hadn't! Very funny, but it's hard to laugh when one's within an ace of a massacre or an explosion.
Latest.—Still in doubt. However, have a subject for something in the dramatic line. What the entertainment will be, depends upon the future development of the plot. At present it may turn out a Tragedy—or an Opéra-bouffe.
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