III

Before leaving, for a few chapters, the subject of the Beach, I should make mention of another well-known character—George Westbrook; whose store lay between the Court House and the Vaisingano. He had been for nearly fifty years in the Pacific, and for thirty-odd in Samoa. He was an Englishman, born at Camberwell—which as he said was then a good residential neighbourhood—and had run away to sea as a boy, deserting his ship in the Islands, where he had met with remarkable adventures. His letters, long and critical of the Administration, were an almost weekly feature of the Samoa Times, the one local newspaper at this period—1923—published on a Friday. There is little doubt that he neglected his business considerably; he appeared to spend nearly all day in an inner office, banging on a typewriter. Outside the store he page 8had a board posted, called the "Beach Wireless," on which were exhibited his more or less pertinent comments upon current events. Often, after a new bulletin, he would stand in the doorway of his store, a sturdy, white-clothed figure, preening himself, and directing the attention of the passer-by to his notice-board. And in conversation he would usually refer to his latest letter in the Samoa Times—"That was one for them! eh?" Sometimes he attempted to inveigle the unwary into looking over great books of press-cuttings that contained everything he had ever written. He had, actually, a certain literary ability; but his sentences being usually, long, involved, and badly arranged, it was not always easy to make much of them. Most people liked him, and I have heard of many a kind and generous action on his part—but never from him. His criticisms often were founded; but he also slammed empty doors, so no one took him very seriously. One of his loudest, verbal, complaints—for he did not confine himself exclusively to script—was the Customs House and Shed had been built at the other end of the town: ignoring the fact that wealth and its components usually gravitate toward the west.

If one went into Westbrook's store to buy, its owner troubled normally very little about the sales. More probably instead he would be striding up and down behind the counter, pen in hand, with a look of worried import on his face: "Now then, can't you give us something for Beach Patter?" Occasionally he would produce spirituous liquor to stimulate the muse—on the closed veranda upstairs, overlooking the reefs of the harbour; where was Stevenson's armchair with the straw stuffing bursting from it; and I remember taunting an acquaintance there, from the Crown Estates Office—who was generally credited with a literary bent—with being so degraded as to write paragraphs at the price of a drink apiece. To this he sardonically, and subsequently, confessed; pleading, in extenuation, Prohibition.