It's quite plain, thought I; she knows very well what
graceless dogs sailors are, and won't have anything to do with us.
But thus thought not my comrade. Bent he was upon firing the cold
glitter of Loo's passionless eyes.
He opened the campaign with admirable tact: making cautious
approaches, and content, for three days, with ogling the nymph for
about five minutes after every meal. On the fourth day, he asked her
a question; on the fifth, she dropped a nut of ointment, and he
picked it up and gave it to her; on the sixth, he went over and sat
down within three yards of the couch where she lay; and, on the
memorable morn of the seventh, he proceeded to open his batteries in
form.
The damsel was reclining on the ferns; one hand supporting her cheek,
and the other listlessly turning over the leaves of a Tahitian Bible.
The doctor approached.
Now the chief disadvantage under which he laboured was his almost
complete ignorance of the love vocabulary of the island. But French
counts, they say, make love delightfully in broken English; and what
hindered the doctor from doing the same in dulcet Tahitian. So at it
he went.
"Ah!" said he, smiling bewitchingly, "oee mickonaree; oee ready
Biblee?"
No answer; not even a look.
