My friend and I occupied facing seats in a railway-carriage on a
tedious journey. Having nothing to read and not much to say, I gazed
through the windows at the sodden English winter landscape, while
my friend's eyes were fixed on the opposite wall of the compartment,
above my head.
"What a country!" I exclaimed at last. "Good heavens, what a country,
to spend one's life in!"
"Yes," he said, withdrawing his eyes from the space above my head.
"And why do we stay in it when there are such glorious paradises to go
to? Hawaii now. If you really want divine laziness--sun and warmth and
the absence of all fretful ambition--you should go to the South Seas.
You can't get it anywhere else. I remember when I was in Hawaii--"
"Hawaii!" I interrupted. "You never told me you had been to Hawaii."
"I don't tell everything," he replied. "But the happiest hours of
my existence were spent in a little village two or three miles
from Honolulu, on the coast, where we used to go now and then for
a day's fun. It was called--let me get it right--it was called
Tormo Tonitui--and there were pleasure-gardens there and the most
fascinating girls." His eyes took on a far-away wistfulness.
"Yes, yes?" I said.
"Fascinating brown girls," he said, "who played that banjo-mandolin
thing they all play, and sang mournful luxurious songs, and danced
under the lanterns at night. And the bathing! There's no bathing here
at all. There you can stay in the sea air day if you like. It's like
bathing in champagne. Sun and surf and sands--there's nothing like
it." He sighed rapturously.
"Well, I can't help saying again," I interrupted, "that it's a most
extraordinary thing that, after knowing you all these years, you
have never told me a word about Honolulu or the South Seas or this
wonderful pleasure-garden place called--what was the name of it?"
He hesitated for a moment. "Morto Notitui," he then replied.
"I don't think that's how you had it before," I said; "surely it was
Tormo Tonitui?"
"Perhaps it was," he said. "I forget. Those Hawaiian names are very
much alike and all rather confusing. But you really ought to go out
there. Why don't you cut everything for a year and get some sunshine
into your system? You're fossilising here. We all are. Let's be
gamblers and chance it."
"I wish I could," I said. "Tell me some more about your life there."
"It was wonderful," he went on--wonderful. I'm not surprised that
STEVENSON found it a paradise."
"By the way," I asked, "did you hear anything of STEVENSON?"
"Oh, yes, lots. I met several men who had known him--Tusitala he
was called there, you know--and several natives. There was one
extraordinary old fellow who had helped him make the road up the
mountain. He and I had some great evenings together, yarning and
drinking copra."
"Did he tell you anything particularly personal about STEVENSON?" I
asked.
"Nothing that I remember," he said; "but he was a fine old fellow and
as thirsty as they make 'em."
"What is copra like?" I asked.
"Great," he said. "Like--what shall I say?--well, like Audit ale and
Veuve Clicquot mixed. But it got to your head. You had to be careful.
I remember one night after a day's bathing at--at Tromo Titonui--"
"Where was that?" I asked.
"Oh, that little village I was telling you about," he said. "I
remember one night--"
"Look here," I said, "you began by calling it Tormo Tonitui, then you
called it Morto Notitui and now it's Tromo Titonui. I'm going to say
again, quite seriously, that I don't believe you ever were in Hawaii
at all."
"Of course I wasn't," he replied. "But what is one to do in a railway
carriage, with nothing to read, and a drenched world and those two
words staring one in the face?" and he pointed to a placard above my
head advertising a firm which provided the best and cheapest Motor
Tuition.
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