"Man alive, why should we want to fool you? What good could it do
us? It's all right."
"Well, if it's all right, we'll all have a drink on it. Here,
Maggie, Lucy, Billy, come here. Get it pannikin. You won't mind me
treatin' 'em with your rum, I suppose, Mister?" he said, turning
to Gordon. "I don't come in for a fortune every day, you know, and
there ain't a drop of lush in the place, only yours."
"Fire away," said Charlie.
"Come on, Lucy. Come on, Maggie. Where's Ah Loy? Watch their faces,
Mister, it's as good as a play. Now then, ladies, I bin poor fella
longa teatime, now rich feller longa bedtime. You savvy?"
The gins grinned uncomprehendingly, but held out their pannikins,
and into each he poured a three-finger nip of raw overproof rum
that would have burnt the palate of Satan himself. They swallowed
it neat, in two or three quick gulps. The tears sprang to their
eyes, and they contorted their faces into all sorts of shapes; but
they disdained to take water after it.
"My word, that strong feller, eh?" said Considine. "Burn your
mouth, I think it. Now then, Ah Loy, how much you wantee? That
plenty, eh?"
Ah Loy peered into the tin pannikin with a dejected air, and turned
it on one side to show that there wasn't much in it.
"Here y'are, then," said his boss. "Have a bit more. We don't come
in for a fortune every day. Watch him take it, Mister."
Ah Loy put the fiery spirit to his lips, and began to drink in slow
sips, as a connoisseur sips port wine.
"Good heavens," said Carew, "it'll burn the teeth out of his head."
The Chinee sipped away, pausing to let the delicate fluid roll well
into the tender part of his mouth and throat.
"Welly stlong!" he said at last; but he finished the lot. The two
black boys had their share, and retired again to their camp. Then
the three white men sat out in front of the house on some logs,
smoking, and looking at the blazing stars.
Considine had fifty questions to ask, and the more Carew tried,
the more helpless it was to explain things to him.
"D'you say there's a house left me with this here money?"
"Yes," replied Carew. "Beautiful old place. Old oaks, and all
that sort of thing. You'll like it, I'm sure. Used to be a pack of
hounds there."
"Ha!" said Considine with contempt. "I don't think much of this
huntin' they have in England. Why, I knew a chap that couldn't
ride in timber a little, and he went to England and hunted, and
d'you know what he said? He said he could have rode in front of
the dogs all the way, if he'd have liked. But the owner of the dogs
asked him not to, so he didn't."