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. And he was no less bold than comical. The
_Adams_ was not supposed to be a match for the _Adler_; there was no
glory to be gained in beating her; and yet I have heard naval officers
maintain she might have proved a dangerous antagonist in narrow waters
and at short range. Doubtless Leary thought so. He was continually
daring Fritze to come on; and already, in a despatch of the 9th, I find
Becker complaining of his language in the hearing of German officials,
and how he had declared that, on the _Adler_ again interfering, he would
interfere himself, "if he went to the bottom for it--_und wenn sein
Schiff dabei zu Grunde ginge_.
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