The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-02-04
REQ.
A Napoleon of Samoan Finance

A Napoleon of Samoan Finance.
 Reo was short, squat Malay, with a
 face like a skate, barring his eyes
 which were long, marrow slits, appa-
 rently expressing nothing but indiffer- ence to ti1e world in general. But they would light up sometimes with a mer- ry twinkle, when the old rogue would narrate some of his past villainies
 He came to Samoa in the old days, long before treaties and imperial com-
 missioners and other gilded vanities were dreamt of by us poor, hard work l ing traders. He seemed to have dropped from the sky when one after noon, as Tom Denison and some of his | friends sat on Charley the Russians l veranda drinking lager, he marched up l to them, sat down on the steps and said Good evening""
 Hello" said Schluter, the skipper of the Anna Goddeffroy. Who are you? Where do you come from?'' He waved a short, stumpy and black clay pipe to and fro, and replied vague ly "Oh, from somewhere
  rectly enough, that he had run away from a ship Then remembered that no vessel had even touched at Apia for month. Later on he told Denison that he had jumped overheard from Bakers Island guanoman as she was running down the coast and swan ashore, landing at point twenty miles distant from Apia. The natives in the various villages had given him food so when he reached the town he was not hungry.
 What do you want, anyway" asked Schluter.
 Some tobacco, please. And a dollar or two I can pay you back"
 "When?" said Hamilton, the pilot, iri- credulously.
 The pipe described a semi-circle "Oh, tomorrow night; before, perhaps"
 They gave him some tobacco and matches and four Bolivian iron" half dollars He got up and went across to Volkner's combined store and grog shanty over the way.
 He's gone to buy a bottle of square face' said Hamilton.
 He deserves it,'' said Denison, gloomily. "A man of his age who could jump overheard and swim ashore to this rotten country should be presented with a case of gin-and knife 10 cut his throat with after he has finished it."
 In about ten minutes the old fellow came out of Volkners store, carrying two or three stout fishing lines, several packets of hooks and half a dozen ship biscuits He grinned as he passed the group on the veranda, and then, squat ting down on the sward near by, began to uncoil the lines and bend on the hooks. Denison was interested, went over to him, and watched the swift, skilful manner in which the thin brown fingers worked.
 Where are you going to fish?" he in- quired.
 The broad, fiat face lit up "Outside | in the dam deep water-sixty, eighty, | faam."
 Denison left him, and went aboard | the ancient, cockroach infested craft of | which he was the heartbroken super | cargo Half an hour laaer 'Reo pad lied past the schooner in a wretched old | canoe, whose outrigger was so inse- ,urely fastened that it threatened to | come adrift every instant. The old man | grnned as he recognized Denison; | -hen pipe in mouth, he went boldly out through the passage between he lines If roaring surf into the tumbling blue beyond l At ten o'clock, just as the supercargo md the skipper were taking their last lip before turning in, the ancient slipped quietly alongside in his canoe md clambered on deck In his right land he carried big salmon-ike fish, weighing about twenty pounds. Lay ng it down on the deck, he pointed to t. Plenty more in canoe like that. You want some more?"
 Denison went to the side and looked ver. The canoe was loaded down to he gunwale with the weight of Iish- lsh that the lazy, loafing Apian na- ives caught but rarely The old man passed up two or three more, took a -lass of grog and padded ashore.