“When we met so auspiciously this afternoon,” our host began in his pleasant voice, “I requested that you call me Goonong Besar. That, however, is what we might call, for want of a better term, merely my nom de l’ile. Actually gentlemen, I am the Almost Honorable James Abingdon Richardson.
nom de l’ile“Parbleu, Monsieur,” de Grandin demanded, “how is it you mean that, ‘the Almost Honorable’?”
ParbleuThe young man blew a cloud of fragrant smoke toward the room’s copper ceiling and watched it float upward a moment before he replied: “My father was an English missionary, my mother a native princess. She was not of the Malay blood, but of the dominant Arab strain, and was known as Laila, Pearl of the Islands.
“My father had alienated himself from his family when he and an elder sister deser
