During the voyage, the ship had to pause at Pago-Pago for a quarantine inspection, and some fellow-passengers who lodged on the island became models for Maugham's story "Rain"; he also met there a young American sailor who was the basis of the title character in "Red".
Maugham and Haxton later stayed at a hotel in Apia, on the island of Upolu, where a bank manager became the character Lawson in "The Pool".
He is corpulent, coarse, and treats the local people like children or with contempt; Mackintosh, his assistant, who is intellectual and methodical, has grown to hate him.
Walker hires local people to build a road for £20; their leader Manuma, who has lived in Upolu and knows what the job is worth, holds out for £100.
After his father's financial ruin and suicide, Edward enters the business of a Chicago merchant with an agency in Tahiti; he will come back to Isabel in a year or two.
He finds that Edward, sacked from the merchant's business, is working in a trader's store, and is the adopted nephew of Arnold Jackson, known in Chicago as a notorious fraudster who spent seven years in the penitentiary.
Neilson invites him to his house and tells him the story of a handsome young American, known as Red for his flaming hair, a sailor who has deserted his ship; Red falls in love with a native girl whom he calls Sally, and they live an idyllic life at a creek near where Neilson now lives.
The narrator learns his story: coming here from England, on account of his health, to manage a branch of a bank, he gets to know Ethel, a half-caste.
Also staying there from the ship is Miss Thompson, and from her room is heard the sound of a gramophone and men's voices; they remember she came on board at Honolulu and is presumably from Iwelei, the red-light district there.
Davidson is determined to stop her activities, and to make her change her ways is often with Miss Thompson, whom he now familiarly calls Sadie.