His name is diagnostic, but it was not required; on every step of his subsequent action in Samoa Irishman is writ large; over all his doings a malign spirit of humour presided.

No malice was too small for him, if it were only funny.

When night signals were made from Mulinuu, he would sit on his own poop and confound them with gratuitous rockets.

He was at the pains to write a letter and address it to "the High Chief Tamasese"-- a device as old at least as the wars of Robert Bruce--in order to bother the officials of the German post-office, in whose hands he persisted in leaving it, although the address was death to them and the distribution of letters in Samoa formed no part of their profession.

His great masterwork of pleasantry, the Scanlon affair, must be narrated in its place.