Ch. 1: The Lang Men O'Larut - Page 2

proportionately built across and through the thickness of his body. Six
good feet nine inches--an overbearin' man. Next to him, and I have
forgotten his precise business, was Sandy Vowle. And he was six feet
seven, but lean and lathy, and it was more in the elasteecity of his
neck that the height lay than in any honesty o' bone and sinew. Five
feet and a few odd inches may have been his real height. The remainder
came out when he held up his head, and six feet seven he was upon the
door-sills. I took his measure in chalk standin' on a chair. And next to
him, but a proportionately made man, ruddy and of a fair countenance,
was Jock Coan--that they called the Fir Cone. He was but six feet five,
and a child beside Lammitter and Vowle. When the three walked out
together, they made a scunner run through the colony o' Larut. The
Malays ran round them as though they had been the giant trees in the
Yosemite Valley--these three Lang Men o' Larut. It was perfectly
ridiculous--a lusus naturae--that one little place should have contained
maybe the three tallest ordinar' men upon the face o' the earth.

'Obsairve now the order o' things. For it led to the finest big drink in
Larut, and six sore heads the morn that endured for a week. I am against
immoderate liquor, but the event to follow was a justification. You must
understand that many coasting steamers call at Larut wi' strangers o'
the mercantile profession. In the spring time, when the young cocoanuts
were ripening, and the trees o' the forests were putting forth their
leaves, there came an American man to Larut, and he was six foot three,
or it may have been four, in his stockings. He came on business from
Sacramento, but he stayed for pleasure wi' the Lang Men o' Larut. Less
than, a half o' the population were ordinar' in their girth and stature,
ye will understand--Howson and Nailor, merchants, five feet nine or
thereabouts. He had business with those two, and he stood above them
from the six feet threedom o' his height till they went to drink. In the
course o' conversation he said, as tall men will, things about his
height, and the trouble of it to him. That was his pride o' the flesh.

'"As the longest man in the island--" he said, but there they took him
up and asked if he were sure.

'"I say I am the longest man in the island," he said, "and on that I'll
bet my substance."

'They laid down the bed-plates of a big drink then and there, and put it
aside while they called Jock Coan from his house, near by among the
fireflies' winking.

'"How's a' wi' you?" said Jock, and came in by the side o' the
Sacramento profligate, two inches, or it may have been one, taller than
he.

'"You're long,"