Happy Dispatch

A Trader’S Tale, By “Tukapa

Koko”

ON one of my Sunday-afternoon visits to the Hermit, in his little Noah’s ark of a bungalow at the boundary of the village, I again found the hoary sinner in tale-telling mood.

His mind, like an old calendar hang ing forgotten on a wall, recked little of to-day’s men and events; and our friend ship was more founded on the loneliness of white men in the Islands than on co-eval experiences. But it was an edu cation to me; and in the Hermit’s yarns, men who died many years before I was born became contemporaries. I talked familiarly of “Old Jock”, “Old Cap’n Blank”, “Old Tinomana”, and others once famous but now forgotten.

The Hermit, piratically parrot-looking, beaky and ancient, seemed to enjoy this instruction of the Young Idea in ancient history.

Pulling at his pipe, with his “cuspidor” —a little wooden box filled with sand— at his feet, he smoked and spat, while I, as his guest, waited for the tale that was sure to come to birth, for native shag acted as the midwife of the Hermit’s travailing memory.

He began: “D’you ever hear of Wun Lung Wow?”

“Who was he?” I asked.

“Why he was a chow,” replied the Her mit, with a pitying smile at my ignor ance.

He spat into the sand-box, and dealt at length with the Cathayan who was the subject of his discourse.

“Old Wun Lung Wow was a China man who lived in Rarotonga in the late ’eighties, when I was trading there for the Company. He kept a little tea shop—the “tea” was coffee, though—and it rather more than kept him, for Wun Lung was a good business man, and he did well in Rarotonga.

“As time went on, Wun Lung got so rich that he got out a few more of his clan from Canton —there was no immi gration law then—and used them to count his money for him, while he took a few naps, for he was no Living Skele ton.

“Wun Lung, was number one teashop keeper in Rarotonga after a few years, and it began to look as if he was for tune’s darling.”

The Hermit re-charged his ancient, odorous pipe, lit up again, and proceeded under forced draught.

“But Wun Lung’s joss was only pull ing his leg, I fear. One fine day, the yellow man found he was not so well off, for he had all the symptoms of the worst form of leprosy.

“Of course, a leper couldn’t be a tea shop-keeper, so Wun Lung Wow put the business into his manager’s hands, and retired.

“Not to China, though! He stayed on in Raro., and gave out that as his days were numbered, he’d be buried there.

And sure enough, he was, about six months later. I know, for I was one of the mourners.”

The Hermit, grinning oddly, could have cracked a nut between nose and chin as he ruminated a while in silence.

“And so, what?” I asked, knowing that the end was not yet in sight.

“That’s about all, except for one thing,” resumed the Hermit.

“What was missing?” I inquired, intrigued.

“Why, the corpse,” said the Hermit; and his nose and chin met in such a grin that they could have crushed a pea.

“But Wun Lung was the corpse, you say!” I protested.

“Not quite,” said the Ancient. “Burial alive was Wun Lung’s way out—he knew he wouldn’t stay alive very long, any how. But the piece de resistance was the final handwaggle he gave as he went down —whether of farewell, or to indi cate change of mind, I don’t know. And none of his grave-digger relations stop ped to inquire as they filled in the earth on top of him!”