Argosy All-Story Weekly, January 21, 1922 — page 127: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

THE KISS TABOO. And Dascomb knew he was going to die. The thing had been deadly before. But to have it witnessed by a tall, serious-minded Englishman! He realized that he could not kiss another hundred and fifty brown ladies to save his life. The Englishman solemnly bade his oars- men run him ashore. He came solemnly up the beach. He stared solemnly at the pale-faced American. Dascomb was un- able to move. The Briton addressed him— “T say, old chap—do you do this every afternoon?” ; Dascomb was unable to speak. “I say—don’t you know, I rather fancy I shouldn’t fancy keeping up the custom, you know. Sorry, too. I was rather hop- in’, you know, you’d sent for me to take up my offer for the island. Bally sorry—but I fancy I’ll have to withdraw it. Really, I couldn’t give so much time to a thing like that. Beastly nuisance to break it up after you’ve started it. But-—don’t let me stop the ceremony. Unless you’re prepared, you know, to consider fifty thousand. Eh? What?” Dascomb felt something happen inside his brain. It was returning from a dull horror of coco-oil scented and beetle-nut flavored kisses to ordinary human consid- erations. That tall, serious Englishman was talking money. He was actually will- ing to give money for this island. He’d take the chief with it, and all his wives— and it would be his funeral whether the rest of them got properly saluted or not. And fifty thousand—of course it was but half of Kitters’s offer. But there hadn’t been a hundred and fifty more wives and financées of Chief Huali-m’uali to be kissed when that offer was made. “Tl take you,” he cried huskily. “ Only — only — just explain to the chief here that I’m too busy to go on to-day. Tell him I’ll finish next week some time, or next month—” Dascomb broke off his instructions. The Englishman was explaining to the chief. He did it with two words and a long foot. “ Get out,” were the two words he used. The chief did not seem entirely satisfied with the explanation. He got the boot right where it helped most to give clearness 117 to the words. At a safe distance from its reach, Huali-m’uali turned about and grinned and bowed. His grin seemed sud- denly quite intelligible. He had become respectful—and happy over it. “ Right-o!” exclaimed the Englishman without for an instant relaxing the blank solemnity of his face. ‘“ But, I say—wait a minute; what? Let’s figure the commis- sion before we go in. I say—what is one per cent of fifty thousand sovereigns? By Jove—I have it! It’s just five hundred pounds! Eh? What? You know, I fancy that Kitters is a bit sharp.” Dascomb staggered a little, straightened his gait, pinched himself. He stared at the Englishman beside him. It was true. The fellow was talking English money. He couldn’t talk any other kind. It wasn’t fifty thousand dollars; it wasn’t Kitters’s hundred thousand dollars; it was, at pres- ent exchange, a snug fortune of over two hundred thousand. “Qh, I say—the first girl I ever saw on Mangue a chappy might kiss with his eyes open!” the tall man was exclaiming again, his face as rigidly remote from the exclam- atory as ever. Dascomb stopped dead. He felt himself turning pale. “Don’t! Don’t!” he gasped. “ She’s— she’s taboo!” “ Rot!” snapped the Briton. ‘ Who told you that?” ‘* Kitters—she has the white flowers in her wreath—” Dascomb insisted. ‘““Oh, I say—why, they all wear white flowers. Jolly droll beast, Kitters.”? The Englishman came back to serious matters; though it couldn’t make his face more seri- ous. “ Just five hundred pounds. I sha’n’t forget. Really, he is a bit sharp, don’t you, think? Eh? What?” “‘{—I should-say so,” Dascomb agreed. ‘Oh, Richard,” Jessie Duncan exclaimed some six weeks later, “it’s just like you. You've cut it off, just as I’d got to liking it. But you'll let it grow again. You must let it grow again. You will, won’t you, dear?” “I will not!’ Dascomb uttered fiercely. Jessie Duncan smiled. That was the way to manage her future husband. comicloool C©