"No," Chester frowned. "I've cut all that stuff out."
"Nonsense," said Moniz. "Good whisky like this never hurt anyone. Just two fingers, eh?" he added persuasively.
After all, the planter did not wish to seem discourteous, so he nodded. Apparently Moniz's idea of "two fingers" was half a tumbler. Chester sipped the drink, smoked, and chatted casually for a while. The Portuguese continued to study his face covertly, but, drawing blank, replenished the whisky in the Englishman's glass. For an hour or more they beat about the bush, neither making so much as a tentative feint.
"I wish you'd come over to see me oftener, Mr. Trent," the Portuguese said at last. "It is lonely enough here, with so few neighbors, all miles apart. There is too little sociability on Tamba for my liking. The planters here—ah! they make me tired. Once in a month, perhaps, some of them come, but they come only for the stores I sell. There is Svenk. He thinks of nothing now but the day when he will sail away and leave the South Seas altogether. It is his wife who dangles Sweden always before his eyes. Women and business, Mr. Trent, they do not mix. Then there is Diaz. He is making money, yes. But what for? He never spends any of it, and he might just as well be buried for all the good it does him. He's burnt out with
