Well, here they all were in the Land We Live In, together with Tom Holderson, Peter Extrum, Eddy Newnes, and Long Joe Kelly, all of Apiang; Papa Benson, of Tarawa; Jones and Peabody, of Big Muggin; and crazy old Jimmy Mathison, of nowhere in particular--unless it were the nearest gin bottle; and it was a rip-roaring Christmas, and no mistake, with bottled beer flowing like water, and songs and choruses and clog dances and hornpipes; and Papa Benson (in earrings and pink pajamas) a-blowing enough wind through his concertina to have sailed a ship. And there were girls, too, seven or eight of them, in bright trade-cotton Mother Hubbards--a bevy of black-eyed little heathen savages, who bore a hand with the trays, and added their saucy laughter to the general gayety, helping out Larry the barkeep as he drew unending corks or stopped to wipe the sweat off his forehead, saying, "Genelmen, the drinks is on Billy," or Tommy, or Long Joe, or whoever it was that was treating.
Suddenly, at the door, which had been kept shut to prevent the natives from assembling and peering in--suddenly, at the door, there was heard a faint, faint knock. The concertina stopped. Fritz, the Dutchman, said "Hoosh!" and raised his pipe for silence. The knock was repeated. Quiet descended on the Land We Live In. Larry looked up from his bottles, and in a rough and belligerent voice called out, "Come in!"
The invitation was hesitatingly obeyed, and there stood Daisy Kirke on the threshold, a sweet, faltering figure, with her guard, boots and all, lined up in the roadway. Hardly a soul in the room knew there was a little white girl on the island; and the sight of Daisy, with the red ribbon in her hair, her dimity frock, her long stockings and pinafore, was as startling as it was unexpected.
"I know you better than you do me," went on Daisy confidentially, proving it with her forefinger. "That's Tommy, the cabin boy; and yonder's Mr. Mathison, the beach-comber; and you"--indicating a giant of a man with an aquiline nose and a square-cut beard--"you are Mr. Bob Fletcher, the ringleader!"
A giggle of subdued merriment ran round the room. An instinctive respect kept it within bounds, or perhaps it was Bob Fletcher's fierce and warning look that cowed any incipient rowdyism. The brawny mutineer set her on his knee, and, in a voice harshened by thirty years' service before the mast, asked her deferentially if she fancied a glass of syrup?