The Maluka was half-buried in books. "Um," he murmured absently, and
that clinched the matter for all time. "Boss bin talk silly fellow" Cheon
said, with an approving nod toward the Maluka, and advised packing the
candlestick away again. "Plenty room sit down longa box," he said,
truthfully enough, putting it into an enormous empty trunk and closing
the lid, leaving the candlestick a piece of lonely splendour hidden under
a bushel.
But the full glory of our possessions was now to burst upon Cheon. The
trunk we were at was half filled with all sorts of cunning devices for
kitchen use, intended for the mistress's pantry of that commodious
station home of past ignorant imagination. A mistress's pantry forsooth,
in a land where houses are superfluous and luxuries barred, and at a
homestead where the mistress had long ceased to be anything but the
little missus - something to rule or educate or take care of, according to
the nature of her subordinates.
In a flash I knew all I had once been, and quailing before the awful
proof before me, presented Cheon with the whole collection of tin and
enamel ware, and packed him off to the kitchen before the Maluka had time
to lose interest in the books.
Everything was exactly what Cheon most needed, and he accepted everything
with gleeful chuckles - everything excepting a kerosene Primus burner for
boiling a kettle. That he refused to touch. "Him go bang," he explained,
as usual explicit and picturesque in his English.
