The Strange Adventure of James Shervinton, page 49 by Louis Becke
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e, 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."
"Never mind my extravagance, Niâbon," I said, in the same spirit; "the one hundred and twenty-five pounds of tobacco in the half-tierce, which only cost me a quarter of a dollar a pound, is better given away to these people than left here to rot."
"Indeed it is," she replied, as she watched Tepi and Pai roll out the half-tierce of the beloved tobacco from my trade-room into that in which we were sitting; "these people here will never forget you."
As soon as old Kaibuka and the other head man had left--each after taking a stiff glass of grog--and the house was again quiet, Niâbon, Tepi, and I set to work to take stock, they calling out the various articles of my trade goods whilst I made out the list. We worked at this throughout the night, had an early breakfast, and then went at it again, and by nine o'clock the work was over, and I knew how I stood with my employers financially.
It was pretty satisfactory, considering the short time I had been on the island; for with my salary of ten pounds a month, and the five per cent, commission I was allowed on all the goods I sold, there were over three hundred pounds due to me. Then, in addition to my cash takings, which came to over three thousand dollars, I had bought over a hundred tons of copra (dried coco-nut) at a very low price, paying for it with trade goods--muskets, rifles, ammunition, tobacco, and liquor--on which latter article my esteemed employers made something like a thousand per cent, profit. Of course I had had a big pull