Sending a gift
of eggs to the Line Party as a donation towards its "Clisymus."
Then finding every one sympathetic, he broached a delicate subject. By
some freak of chance, he said, the missus was the only person who had
succeeded in growing good melons this year, and taking her to the melon
beds, which the grasshoppers had also passed by, he looked longingly at
three great fruits that lay like mossy green boulders among the rich
foliage. "Just chance," he reiterated, and surely the missus would see
that chance also favoured our "Clisymus." "A Clisymus without dessert
would be no Clisymus at all," he continued, pressing each fruit in turn
between loving hands until it squeaked in response. "Him close up ripe,
missus. Him sing out!" he said, translating the squeak.
But the missus appeared strangely inattentive, and in desperation Cheon
humbled himself and apologised handsomely for former scoffings. Not
chance, he said, but genius! Never was there white woman like the
missus! "Him savey all about," he assured the Maluka. "Him plenty savey
gardin." Further, she was a woman in a thousand! A woman all China would
bow down to! Worth ninety-one-hundred pounds in any Chinese matrimonial
market. "A valuable asset," the Maluka murmured.
It was impossible to stand against such flattery. Billy Muck was hastily
consulted, and out of his generous heart voted two of the mossy boulders
to the white folk, keeping only one for "black fellow all about." "Poor
old Billy!" He was to pay dearly for his leaning to the white folk.
Nothing was amiss now but Dan's non-appearance; and the egg-beater
whirring merrily on, by Christmas Eve, the Dandy and Jack, coming in with
wild duck for breakfast and the Vealer, found the kitchen full of
triumphs and Cheon wrestling with an immense pudding. "Four dozen egg
sit down," he chuckled, beating at the mixture. "One bottle port wine,
almond, raisin, all about, more better'n Pine Creek all right "; and the
homestead taking a turn at the beating "for luck," assured him that it
"knocked spots off Pine Creek."
"Must have money longa poodin'!" Cheon added, and our wealth lying also
in a cheque book, it was not until after a careful hunt that two
threepenny bits were produced, when one, with a hole in it, went in "for
luck," and the other followed as an omen for wealth.
The threepenny bits safely in, it took the united efforts of the
homestead to get the pudding into a cloth and thence into a boiler, while
Cheon explained that it would have been larger if only we had had a
larger boiler to hold it. As it was, it had to be boiled out in the
open, away from the buildings, where Cheon had constructed an ingenious
trench to protect the fire from rain and wind.
