Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1911-06-16
MARRlES ALL coMERS.
american King Of a South Sea Island
Has 200 Wives.

This is distinctly ana QellDerately q
romantic story. 1t began romantical-
ly, progressed in that strain and prob
ably will end romantically. There is,
however, no reason for being fright
ened, for it shall contain no sentiment
of the maudlin kind. 1t will yield a
lot of proposals, but as may be seen
by reading a little further, these will
be bare Of depression into foolishness.
They will be in fact quite business
like. even cordial.
But to begin: There was and Is a
broad street in a certain city frequent
ed by stage persons and their admir-
ers amateur and professional. Some
ten years ago there moved in this
lambert vicinage a man in young ma
turity who sold stocks and dabbled
about finances for livelihood and
then spent that livelihood in the white
places. He had money and there was
no reason why he should not have
as was the sense of the same reader
with such terms as boulevardier, man
about town, good fellow, live 'un.
Folks took lively interest in all his
private affairs and predicted his ruin.
They have a way of doing that. II
you'll wander into almost any place
where they serve moistened meals af-
ter 9 o'clock in the evening, and look
about you you will perceive two class
es-the performer and the audience.
The former consist generally, with
a few exceptions, Of young men who
have saved the price Of the thing and
a homegoing taxicab from month Of
penurious living and young women
who have been brash enough to go
along. 1t is not even essential that
they be young. On the other hand you
will find the audience and lookers-on
consisting of persons shocked at the
thought of how these others are bor-
dering on dissolution, financial and
other. The dissolution seldom comes
about. Thus when 1t really happens
there's romance.
This is-as one might have guessed
overlook the young man who
sold stocks. only it came to be through
no guilt on the part of the light places.
They said of him, to be sure, that he
ate lobster for breakfast, drank cham
pagne instead Of buttermilk and was
adored OF the chorus girls. However,
they always say these things, even
when they're untrue. But 1t was a
general fussiness Of the street that un-
did our hero.
morning-whichever way was his hab-
ito discover that the few stray thou
sand dollar bills in his card case were
all that stood between him and star
vation. The fortune was gone. What
was he to do? Start all over? Yes,
but how? How! The old haunts
would have Knocked him, those whom
he had fed with charity on the previ-
Gus midnight laughed at him and
those who once bowed to his depreca-
tory nod spurned him.
Right here is a little problem for
those who like to think. What ought
a man to do under the circumstances?
c. Everett, widely known in
New York, London and Paris for his
gayety, wealth and pleasure loving
disposition, refused to join the city's
decrepit of luck. He smoothed out
his matted affairs and disappeared.
The broad we'll lighted street forgot,
the girls he had feted grew plump and
spoke of him as one of "the dear old
boys we used to know In them great
days" Even such creditors as might
have been forgotten in the exigencies
of speedy and discounted departure
forgot. Lobster was eaten as ever,
and the importations Of champagne
increased annually.
But not so long ago Archibald c.
Everett came back. He was not dis
covered in some tramps' paradise
rooming house. Neither had he suf-
fered aphasia and been lost to him
self. Nothing so commonplace. He
had been down in the South Seas
some eight years on the little island OF
Arorai in the Gilbert group and came
back as king and despot of that lovely
mountain Of coral.
Now whenever romance Is mention
ed there comes to the average person
the vision of being a king in some out
of the way place where the ripe bread
fruit drops carelessly into your hun
CRY mouth and you tap sweet intoxi-
cants from the trees with far less ef-
forts than one needs to expend on
the imperious waiter; where lovely
damsels gambol under the graceful
palms and the green sea swarms with
strange cooked fish ready to jump up
on the extended platter, much as a
frogs leg springs from the griddle un-
less held back by a paper weight.
That's where Everett had been.
When the stock market played him
false he went out to San Francisco,
boarded some sort of floating appara-
tus and made for distant groups Of is
lands. He wandered hither and thith-
er, and also yon. At length he came
to Arorai, in the Gilbert Islands, which
isn't strictly in the South Seas, being
just above the equator Over this gar
den he found regnant dark old king
named Rovaka. The island happened
to be a British protectorate, but it's a
long way from home, and they don't
pay much attention to 1t, so old King
Rovaka had things his own way.
Everett was wearing white flannel
trousers when he happened in on the
ancient monarch. whose love of the
picturesque was Immediately excited
by these garments. A man who came
from an unheard Of place with legs Of
an undreamed Of color was surely a
divinity.
Everett liked the place and the folks
and decided to remain. To King Ro-
vaka nothing could have been more
felicitous. He was possessed Of a
daughter, Arawall, a beauty Of her
race. and this only child old Rovaka
gave to Everett, at the same time
making him heir to the throne. Two
years later the monarch went to his
reward, whatever that may be in the
Gilbert Isles. Fate's little shuttle
cock was king. He has been king six
years and still likes the job.
Among the things he has and has
done on his island are:
Two hundred odd wives; he isn't
concerned enough to count them.
Perfect domestic harmony the year
round, rain or shine.
thinlc