thing I saw they had put a plate with a slice of pine-apple on it before
him and stood back to watch what would happen. But the experiment seemed
a failure. He sat insensible.

It was imparted to me in a low voice by Captain Giles that this was
an officer of some Rajah's yacht which had come into our port to be
dry-docked. Must have been "seeing life" last night, he added, wrinkling
his nose in an intimate, confidential way which pleased me vastly. For
Captain Giles had prestige. He was credited with wonderful adventures
and with some mysterious tragedy in his life. And no man had a word to
say against him. He continued:

"I remember him first coming ashore here some years ago. Seems only the
other day. He was a nice boy. Oh! these nice boys!"

I could not help laughing aloud. He looked startled, then joined in the
laugh. "No! No! I didn't mean that," he cried. "What I meant is that
some of them do go soft mighty quick out here."

Jocularly I suggested the beastly heat as the first cause. But Captain
Giles disclosed himself possessed of a deeper philosophy. Things out
East were made easy for white men. That was all right. The difficulty
was to go on keeping white, and some of these nice boys did not know
how. He gave me a searching look, and in a benevolent, heavy-uncle
manner asked point blank:

"Why did you throw up your berth?"

I became angry all of a sudden; for you can understand how exasperating
such a question was to a man who didn't know. I said to myself that I