midday
One last drink , you know . '' In the week that followed at Papeete Grief caught numerous and bizarre glimpses of Aloysius Pankburn . So did everybody else in the little island capital ; for neither the beach nor Lavina 's boarding house had been so scandalized in years . In midday , bareheaded , clad only in swimming trunks , Aloysius Pankburn ran down the main street from Lavina 's to the water front . He put on the gloves with a fireman from the _ Berthe _ in a scheduled four-round bout at the _ Folies Bergères _ , and was knocked out in the second round . He tried insanely to drown himself in a two-foot pool of water , dived drunkenly and splendidly from fifty feet up in the rigging of the _ Mariposa _ lying at the wharf , and chartered the cutter _ Toerau _ at more than her purchase price and was only saved by his manager 's refusal financially to ratify the agreement . He bought out the old blind leper at the market , and sold breadfruit , plantains , and sweet potatoes at such cut-rates that the gendarmes were called out to break the rush of bargain-hunting natives .