Having dazzled my eyes with this prospect, I turned gratefully to the vanities of life that may be had for two francs in Tahiti. _Vide_ bill of fare: One fried egg, like the eye of some gigantic Albino; potatoes hollowed out bombshell fashion, primed with liver-sausage, very ingenious and palatable; the naked corpse of a fowl that cared not to live longer, from appearances, yet looked not happy in death.
Item: Wonder if there _is_ a more ghastly spectacle than a chicken cooked in the French style; its knees drawn up on its breast like an Indian mummy, while its blue-black, parboiled, and melancholy visage tearfully surveys its own unshrouded remains. After a brief season of meditation, I said, and I trust I meant it, "I thank the Lord for all these blessings." Then I gave the corpse of the chicken Christian burial under a fold of the window curtain, disposed of the fried eye of the Albino, and transformed myself into a mortar for the time being, taking potato-bombshells according to my calibre.
There was claret all the while and plenty of butterless roll, a shaving of cheese, a banana, black coffee and cognac, when I turned again to dazzle myself with the white fence, and saw with infinite pity,--a sentiment perhaps not unmixed with a suspicion of cognac or some other temporary humanizing element,--I saw for a fact that the poor cock had wilted, and lay flat in the sun like a last year's duster. That was too much for me. I wheeled towards the door where gleamed the bay with its lovely ridges of light; canoes drifting over it drew the eye after them irresistibly; I heard the ship-calkers on the beach making their monotonous clatter, and the drone of the bareheaded fruitsellers squatted in rows chatting indolently, with their eyes half shut. I could think of nothing but bees humming over their own sweet wares.
About this time a young fellow at the next table, who had scarcely a mouthful of English at his command, implored me to take beer with him; implying that we might, if desirable, become as tight as two bricks. I declined, much to his admiration, he regarding my refusal as a clear case of moral courage, whereas it arose simply and solely from my utter inability to see his treat and go him one better.