“You remember that first time I came to school and the boys ducked me?” he asked. “Why did you take my part?”

The half-brother smiled bashfully.

“Because you knew?”

“Yes, that was why.”

“But I didn’t know,” Percival Ford said in the same dry fashion.

“Yes,” the other said.

Another silence fell. Servants were beginning to put out the lights on the lanai.

“You know… now,” the half-brother said simply.

Percival Ford frowned. Then he looked the other over with a considering eye.

“How much will you take to leave the Islands and never come back?” he demanded.

“And never come back?” Joe Garland faltered. “It is the only land I know. Other lands are cold. I do not know other lands. I have many friends here. In other lands there would not be one voice to say, ‘Aloha, Joe, my boy.’”

“I said never to come back,” Percival Ford reiterated. “The Alameda sails tomorrow for San Francisco.”

Joe Garland was bewildered.

“But why?” he asked. “You know now that we are brothers.”

“That is why,” was the retort. “As you said yourself, everybody knows. I will make it worth your while.”

All awkwardness and embarrassment disappeared from Joe Garland. Birth and station were bridged and reversed.

“You want me to go?” he demanded.

“I want you to go and never come back,” Percival Ford answered.

And in that moment, flashing and fleeting, it was given him to see his brother tower above him like a mountain, and to feel himself dwindle and dwarf to microscopic insignificance. But it is not well for one to see himself truly, nor can one so see himself for long and live; and only for that flashing moment did Percival Ford see himself and his brother in true perspective. The next moment he was mastered by his meagre and insatiable ego.