"Now, boys," said the Captain in a fatherly tone, "lemme tell you something. While I've been a-roostin' up here in my perch, I've been a-watchin' you boys; a-watchin' an' a-worryin'. What have you been a-doin'? You've been a-raisin' hell, you have. Son, you ain't a rote a word, have yer? An' you, Whinney--boy, you ain't ketched a bug nor a beetle, have yer? And you, ole Swanko-panko, you ain't drawed a line, have yer?" We hung our heads like schoolboys before the master. Of course if Triplett put it that way, on moral grounds, so to speak, there was no more to be said. "Well, what's the answer?" he continued. "It's time you got married an' settled down, ain't it? When is it to be?" * * * It was a triple wedding, the first and probably the last in the Filbert Islands, and one of the most charming affairs I have ever seen. We left the selection of our brides to Baahaabaa and, believe me, he showed himself a master-picker. The ceremony took place on the beach at high midnight, the fashionable island hour. How happy we all were! Triplett's qualifications had completely cleared the atmosphere of any moral misgivings which might have clouded the beauty of the gorgeous tropical night. The Captain read a service of his own composition full of legal whereases and aforesaids and containing one reference to the laws of the Commonwealth of the State of Massachusetts which struck me as rather far-fetched but which under the circumstances I decided to let pass. Mrs. Traprock, of whom I can even now write only with deep emotion, was an exquisite creature, constructed in accordance with the best South Sea specifications in every particular. Swank and Whinney were equally fortunate. We would not have traded wives for ten tons of copra though Moolitonu, who was my best man, explained that this was perfectly possible in case we were not satisfied. The gayest of wedding breakfasts followed at which all the ushers behaved in the orthodox manner after which we were conducted to our individual trees with appropriate processional and epithalamic chorals. The ladies' singing society had composed for the occasion a special ode which ran as follows: Hooio-hoaio uku kai unio, Kipiputuonaa aaa titi huti, O tefi tapu, O eio hoki Hoio-hooio ona haasi tui. This was set to a slow five-eighths rhythm. A crude translation of the words, lacking entirely the onomatopoetic quality of the original goes something like this: Stay, O stay, Moon in your ascending! Daughter of Pearl and Coral to the Moon up-goes, Stay, O stay, Moon with light unending, Coral, Pearl and Moonlight, guard them from falling cocoanuts.