Think nothing of it," Robert said. "Any time, I can help you out."
Harold would have gotten away with it if it hadn't been for the plantation cook. Maritha lost no time in telling everyone about how a greenhorn American dude had put one over on Harold. In less than the time that it takes for me to tell about it, the island was chortling over the hard-boiled eggs that the chickens at Harold's had laid the night after the full moon.
To this day, some of the kind and gentle folk on Taveuni swear that it was the moon that did it. Hard Boiled and Robert the Researcher were strange bed fellows indeed but they had developed a healthy appreciation for each other that verged on friendship. As the saying goes - it takes one to know one.
There are still some simple folk who swear that the hens of Taveuni had been bewitched by the mischievous witch of Matangi, an island six miles off the Taveuni coast, but that's another story.
The latest scuttlebutt is that the next thing likely to happen is that the mangoes will bounce like tennis balls after heavy rain on the night after a full moon.