The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1902-03-03
Continued from Page 81

/ said:
How do you feel in writing these
things that you writer"
Like fool he replied shortly.
The world is filing up with intelligent
beings who can't be humbugged. /
doubt if half of them believe what 1
or any other inkster says to them
Again, 1 said to him: This Ballan-
trae fellow meaning the Master OF
Ballantrae' was a bad lot. What allied
him.
81 don't know replied Stevenson.
/ He spoiled on my hands. l meant to
give him a chance, but the grace of
God wasn't in the fellow.
stevenson was daft on the stringed
music, although he did not care for the
brass. In Honolulu there was a hand
some. rollicking young Irishman, nam
ed Doyle. a Trinity man from Dublin,
and an interpreter in the Hawaiian
courts, who was expert on the concert
either. Stevenson made a tremendous
lot of Doyle, who quite deserved it for
| his many accomplishments, and would
wheedle him into fetching his either TO
the suburban Honolulu bungalow upon
! all occasions.
| Doyle had the tremoIo folk songs of
! Germany al his fingers ends on the
either, and Stevenson seemed to be in
! more or less of trance when Doyle
was performing. he occasionally whis-
pered Homer's hexametres to himself
while Doyle played in a measure to
correspond.
eff Ireland We're volcanic, and
should sink into the sea some night
Stevenson used to say to Doyle, the
world would be bereft of more than
half of its poetic and imaginative peo-
pie
What they call down in the islands
of Hawaii the taro-patch guitars, rough
but sweet instruments that the Ka-
nakas pick on, furnished music that ap-
pealed strongly to Stevenson, too. I
heard him say once that there was no
song or hymn in the world so full of
meaning as the Aloha De- of the Ka-
nakaS.
HE was a man of sudden kindly i'm
pulses. On the waterfront of Homo
lulu one of the characters was an aged
Kanaka, simple-minded from senility,
who had traversed the Pacific seas as
whaler and merchant sailor for a great
many years.
THE old man rugged himself out in !
a grotesque dress, including the cap of |
an American bluejacket, and occupied |
himself in picking coal along the en- |
frances to the Honolulu wharves. He |
was an accomplished whistler, and his |
specially consisted in taking a stand !
every few minutes, shrilling out an
imitation of a bo'suns call on the pipe, |
and then passing the word to follow
All hands up anchor All hands aban-
don ship or something of that sort.
THE old Kanaka was exceedingly |
wrong with overmuch saki one after
noon when I was down at the Honolulu
dock with Stevenson. and his limitations !
of the bosun's calls were such mere
babble that big shore party of drunk
en- bluejackets from the L. S. s. Adams
were rewarding him, as he lay on pile
of coal, with hurled offerings Of stale
fruits Indigenous to Hawaii. i
stevenson had often befriended and ),
conversed with the old Kanaka-who, /
by the way. asserted his lineal descent
from Kamehameha, the conqueror King
of Hawaii-and he flew into hot
wrath over the way the tars were
handling the old fellow. he harangsed !.
the man-s'-wars men over it until
they looked sheepish and appointed
their spokesman TO tell him that they
We're only foolin'' and then he had the
old saki-suIcharged Kanaka sailor put !
into a hack and taken out to a hut adj
joining his bungalow, where he saw to
1t that the old chap was well cared for
during his sobering-up process. Then
he shipped the Old fellow up to La
haina. on the Island of Maui, bought
him a fine canoe and put him in bust
ness as a fisherman.
Stevenson was about as strong a
lover of the United States as it would
be possible for any man to be. One
night he was present at a dinner al the
British Exchange in Honolulu, an an
nual affair, to which all of the prom
inent men were invited Il
He quite withdrew into himself
throughout the dinner, having only
to attend upon receiving the F..
express promise of the presiding officer
that he wouldn't be asked to do any ,
thing. and only the few men in his
corner of the table had the pleasure of
enjoying his talk as the dinner warmed
up with all hands and the wine went
round.
The dinner terminated in a disaster.
The favors were tiny American and
British flags of silk, designed to fit into .
small silver holders that were provided.
An Englishman present at the dinner,
who had only lately arrived in Homo
lulu, and who had dined too freely,
picked UP the tiny American flag at
his plate and insolently swashed it
around in a big stein of ale before his
plate. While he grinned contemptuous-
~.
An athletic young American naval
officer close by him saw the action and =
called the Englishman to account for it.
Z" That's absent mindedness Of
course, on your part?' inquired the ma
val officer.
g." NO salt the Englishman, contin-
uing to soak the American flag in the
ale.
Stevenson got to his feet, his eyes
very wrathful.