I, THE KING
By WAYLAND WELLS WILLIAMS.
(Copyright, 1924.)
(Continued from Yesterday.)
When he woke he law faces peer
ing In at the door. Two of them
belonged to girls, not pretty, but al
most; one of them wore white flowers
; In her hair. Kit gave an involuntary
| spring toward his uniform; he was in
t his underclothes, and his underclothes
j for tho moment consisted of drawers,
; he having left his shirt in the dory.
The girls laghed, and he sank back
on tho bed. There must be no fool
ishness about modesty. He was as
well clothed as any of the native men
he had seen.
He dressed and, followed by the
girls, went into the other room, where
Masson had retired. He discovered
him sitting on his bed, clad only In
his trousers, his arm about the waist
of a native girl, leering. "Oh, Lord,
so we're in for that sort of thing,”
muttered Kit, turning on his heel.
He called Ktera and went forth on
! a walk of exploration. He told him
j self he was looking for other white
! men’s dwellings, but was not de
j reived. He inspected the lagoon; it
seemed to be several miles long, nar
rowing considerably at the northern
end. The opposite, or western, side
of the surrounding atoll was lower
and thinner than the one he was on;
it was a mere string of palm-fringed
islets connected by stretches of hare
coral sand. With a detached interest
he noted the colors of the lagoon In
the sunlight, its hues of amethyst,
sapphire and emerald—as useless to
him, under these conditions, as the
jewels themselves would be.
Returning to the coral path which
stretched up and down the middle of
the island, they walked northward for
perhaps two miles. They passed
through one or two tiny villages; peo
ple came out and stared at them, fat
brown women with babies at tho
breast, men, mostly corpulent if over
thirty, old crones with absurd leath
ery breasts, small children sucking
their fingers, mother-naked. Very
few wore anything above the waist;
one or two of the women wore old
and bedraggled holokus, long-sleeved
wrappers reaching to their ankles;
x--- \
New York
••Day by Day
____'\
By O. O. McINTYRE.
New York, Oct. 29.—Several
times I have spoken of a young
Broadway actor who wrote to me
from behind the gloomy walls of a
western prison His letters breathed
a spirited courage and several
friends also wrote to him.
He was ambitious to write and
was encouraged by the acceptance
by magazine* of several stories.
The warden was appealed to and
took a special interest and despite
three conviction* for forgery his
sentence was shortened.
A position on an eastern news
paper was arranged for him. The
editor only knew his past. He had
every chance to begin life afresh
and carve for himseelf an honorable
career. The test of his sincerity was
to come after his release.
One day out of prison he began
writing those who had written to
him for money on the plea hi*
father was desperately 111 In the east.
Several wired him varying amounts.
Hour weeks later he had left a
trail of bad checks In Bos Angeles.
And in a month and a day ho was
hack again in the clutches of the law,
but escaped on the way to trial. He
will eventually go back to prison
with the stiffest sentence he has
ever received and deservedly so.
His case carries the conviction that
coddling In penitentiaries has been
tried often and failed.
So long as the rogue is enclosed
In stone and steel he will promise
anything. This young man’s pro
fessions of reform were so earnest
and convincing that every person
to whom he wrote gave Implicit
confidence His betrayal keeps
many fellow prisoners from being
helped.
A great criminal hunter to whom
I related the story of this young
actor's past performances said:
"A man with three convictions will
rarely If ever go straight. He has
had three chances and fumbled
them. He is only waiting now to
fumble another.”
Coney Island had a new kind of
hot "dog” this season. The "dog”
is encased In dough and bak
ed together. On the average at
Coney 100,000 hot dogs are con
sumed. Many of the hot dog con
cessionaries make enough during
the Coney season to live In com
fort the rest of the year.
My experience with the “hot
dog” has been anything but plea
ant. Years ago at Coney I forti
fied myself with three and fell
asleep on the train coming home.
A pickpocket got my watch and
purse and I awakened with an at
tack of Indigestion that kept me
to my bed for three days.
The purse by the way carried
the only picture of my mother I had.
I advertised for It In all news
paper* asking the thief to return
it and even offered to pay a re
ward. Several years later from Sing
Sing he wrote he had pawned the
purse in a Bowery pawn shop.
I recovered it and asked
him why he had not let m*
know at the time, lie replied he
had seen the advertisement hut
wasn’t taking chances on being
traced "My liberty,” he said, "was
worth more to me than I thought
the picture would be to you.”
Now and then I drop Into the
Hadley Mission on the Bowery
which is conducted by John Calla
han. The last time I was there Calla
han asked me to speak. Among
the flotsam and Jetsam of human
ity cast Jip there was a ruddled
fellow who once worked with me
on a copy desk of a newspaper.
He had gone down through drink—
lost Job after Job, his health and 111*
family. Afterward I sought him out
and we went to a restaurant. He
was recovering from a spree and
was shaking like a leaf.
"I’ve made a botch of my life,”
he said, "and I mny as well tell
you frankly I don't want your
advice or sympathy. When 1 get
hold of some money I’m off on
another one. There is ono lesson I
have learned. When you loo* your
gclf-respect you are gone
tCevyrlsbt. 1924.)
-— I
but the vast majority wore either
the plaited waist-mat or the cincture
of pamlanus straw strung from a
cord—the be or the rivi. All were
curious, good-tempered, garrulous and
incomprehensible. All had a strange
oily smell and all were Interested in
tabake.
At length they came to a point of
land; open water surged between
them and the next tongue of white
coral. Kit could see the northern
point of the atoll curving away out
to sea in a reef punctuated by a few
small islets bearing wind-beaten
palms. And at the end of that, eight
or ten miles distant, a swell of land,
much higher than that on which he
stood; another island.
"Why, of course!" he cried when he
saw it "I understand—that's the
main show over there! It's not just
one island, it's two or three, perhaps
a while bunch! They’re over there—
whoever they are. Hi, Eetera! See,
over there, Germans? Deutsch over
there, Germans, Ingalees, yes? White
men?"
Etera shook his head, and was vol
ubly sure, in his obscure beche-de
mer, that no one lived on the island
who would interest Kit. "No fella
white man," lie kept repeating, omit
ting or perverting most of the conso
nents. "He no stop. He walk away,
along boatee.”
“I’ll go over there and take a look,
all the same," said Kit.
They were overtaken by a shower
on the way back, and took shelter
under what Etera called a maniaba
in one of the small villages. This
was simply a rectangular thatched
roof sweeping nearly to the ground
from a height of perhaps thirty feet,
In an arresting and pleasing outline.
Kit had seen a larger one in the main
village. It was apparently used as a
council hall and plaza, a place both
to convene and lounge in. Some peo
ple were dozing in it now. Kit sat
down on the earthen floor and watched
the rain beat down outside. He not
ed certain fauna; crabs; one tree
climbing variety of a bright pure blue.
Hardly the color for a crab. There
were also rats, reddish, and smaller
than American ones, and somewhat
less unattractive. A few chickens
strolled about, mangy and dispirited
looking fowl, mostly cocks.
He also noticed rain water tanks,
bowls carved from tree trunks placed
under particularly large palms, with
a leader of a cocoanut frond deftly
fixed so as to divert the water from
tree to tub. He reflected that he
had drunk no water since landing,
only cocoanut Juice. Vet there must
be fresh water; he had seen one or
two muddy pools.
They reached the Resident at sun
down. Etera brought supper, also a
lamp consisting of a cocoanut shell
filled with cocoanut oil, and a wick
of some informal fibrous material. Kit
was interested to see the boy make
fire with a fire drill; but the lamp
when lit gave a poor light and stank
to heaven. Also there was nothing
to stay up for, and soon after Etera
had installed himself on his hat in the
hall Kit retired to his own hard but
clean couch. Of Masson there was
nothing to be seen.
IV.
The next morning he devoted to
study. There were a few books In
the Residqpz, all mildewed and writ
ten in German, but priceless, fit was
then that he gave thanks for the min
istrations of Krauleln Rock.) There
was a little paper-bound Gcrman
Nairavese dictionary, worth It Weight
in diamonds, and two or three Colo
nial Office pamphlets. From these
latter, and from the information he
picked up ns the result of familiarity
with the language, he was able to
learn something about the island and
its history.
Nairava lies at the southern end
of an isolated reef rising out of the
vast waste of water between, rough
ly speaking, Hawaii and the Gilberts.
It is small, as coral atolls go, meas
uring only a little over four miles in (
its longest direction. Many atolls
measure thirty. The Gilberts are
about as near as any inhabited group,
and it appears that from them the
first Nairavans came. Some south
west storm threw them, in their long
outrigger canoes, on its strand with
the same casual gesture that it had
thrown Kit. There are traces, lin
guistic and otherwise, of additions
from other races further south, hut
the language and physique are pre
donderantly Micronesian. In Nairava
and its sister island Tengulu the cast
aways settled and throve, and prob
ably no friend who saw them depart
ever learned of their survival.
Lying far from all the main trade
routes, and offering no particular ad
vantages for trade or colonization,
these islands remained long unknown
to the world, and when known, dls
regarded. Cook visited them on his
last voyage and described the inhabi
tants as "neither Intelligent nor trac
table.” For nearly a century they
remained neglected, damned by that
phrase, visited only by the rarest
whalers and traders. But these last
Inevitably taught the natives how to
make copra, and at last the great
house of Godeffroy, of Hamburg,
established an agency there.
That was in the early 'eighties, and
it was not till twenty years later
that the German government thought
It worthwhile to take formal posses
sion. What attracted them, of course,
was the hill of Tenguiu, reminiscent
of the phosphate-bearing ones of
Nauru nml Ocean Island. They took
over the islands first and investigated
afterward, and it turned out a bad
bet. There were no phosphate* on
Tenguiu, no coal, no iron, no gold
or anything but basalt slowly crum
bling beneath a lush tropic vegetation.
Still, it was another red dot on the
map of Germany.
So they kept the islands, and estab
lished a resident in addition to the
Godeffroy agent. The receipts for
m.
copra, the one exportable produce,
were hardly sufficient (5,400 marks in
1912) to defray their salaries, but
Empire was Empire. The seat of
government was established on Nair
ava. This was a reversal of the na
tive arrangement, under which Nair
ara had always been at least nomi
nally tributary to the kings of Ten
gulu. The latter island, however, was
not a good place for white men. It
had plenty of fresh water and a fer
tile soil, but also quantities of flies,
mosquitoes and other disease-bearing
Insects, and no harbor. Ntarava had
little soil and less water, but It bad
a *ood roadstead, few mosquitoes and
a climate as healthful and s*reeal'le
as that of any coral atoll.
(To Hr I ontlnned Tomorrow .)
PRESIDENT COOLIDGK SA1S: |
Laws do not make reforms, but re.
forms make laws. __
Movie of a Man Trying to Park a Cigar
HSHT3 FlNC CIGAR CON0UCTOR INFORMS
While WAITING FOR $N\OKG.R.IM R6AR /
Train to city t /
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PLEASURE OF jnaom»m<S
rather Tham TRAVEL
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IS having DRY smoke
AS Traaimr-AAKi ALSO
iMFORlvyS OF LOCATION
OF. SMOKRIL
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i AVOID APPEAR AMCC
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vmimDovaj L6D<3e
To Dirty Floor
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A LONG, LONG WAY FROM HOME.
Directed for The Omaha Bee by Sol He*s
(Copyright 1924)
---- --1
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