My father looked up and sighed before he spoke. "Ah, Harry," he remarked, "you're a lucky man! All your life you've been a rainbow-chaser and now you seem to have caught up with one at last. It's hard not to envy you when I hear a story like the one you've told! I didn't realize what a dull old stay-at-home I had become. As for the boy, I'm tempted to let him go; but you're asking a good deal! You live in a rough part of the world, if the stories one hears are true. There must be men down there who would make it hot for you if the news of your pearl-lagoon leaked out. Even in California we used to hear of the exploits of Bully Hayes." My uncle smiled and shook his head. "Those days are past," he said. "Pease and Hayes are dead, and they've left no successors in the Eastern Pacific. So far as I know, there's only one scoundrel of that type left in Polynesia and he operates far out to the west: 'Thursday Island Schmidt'--ever hear of him? I don't know him myself, and I'm not hankering to make his acquaintance until this job is done. But he's never been east of Samoa, and even old Thursday Island would hesitate to tackle a barefaced hold-up nowadays. Warships and the wireless have ended all that. Let the boy come--I'd be the last man to drag him into any scrapes." "He can go, then," said my father, rising from his chair. "I only wish I'd had such a chance when I was a youngster. But you'll have to talk his mother around--I wash my hands of that! We'll leave that for tomorrow, eh? Come, you must be tired; we'd better turn in, all three of us." And so the matter was left, while I wandered in a daze to my room and lay down to spend a night made sleepless by mingled anxiety and happiness. III ABOARD THE TARA It must have taken a deal of talking to win my mother's consent, but Uncle Harry proved equal to the task. When we had breakfasted he sat with her for an hour in the courtyard, and afterward, when I saw her alone, she kissed me and told me that I was to go. We had guests that day--old friends who had known my uncle when he was a boy. I sat at dinner with the others, but all I can remember of the meal is that Uncle Harry praised my ducks. I was still dazed at my good fortune: my dreams of adventure and of distant wanderings were to come true at last! A cruise on the Tara in the South Seas--a quest for pearls in a tropical lagoon--a part in the sequel of my uncle's tale--indeed, the prospect was enough to intoxicate any boy of fifteen. Iriatai! There was magic in the word alone, and I repeated it under my breath while the older people about me spoke of commonplace things.