“Perhaps some one’s given the “wealth” to his dog,” Tam suggested, to our consternation; for that was more than possible, as the dogs from time to time had received tit-bits from their masters as a matter of course.

But the man who deserved it most was to find it.  As we sat sipping tea, after doing our best with the cakes and water-melons, we heard strange gurgles in the kitchen, and then Cheon appeared choking and coughing, but triumphantly announcing that he had found the wealth in his first mouthful.  “My word!  Me close up gobble him,” he chuckled, exhibiting the pudding-coated threepence, and not one of us grudged him his good omens.  May they have been fulfilled a thousand-fold!

Undoubtedly our Christmas dinner was a huge success—­from a black fellow’s point of view it was the most sensible thing we Whites had ever organised; for half the Vealer, another huge pudding, several yards of sweet currant “brownie,’” a new pipe apiece, and a few pounds of tobacco had found their way to the “humpy”; and although headaches may have been in the near future, there was never a heartache among them.

All afternoon we sat and chatted as only the bush-folk can (the bush-folk are only silent when in uncongenial society), “putting in” a fair amount of time writing our names on one page of an autograph album; and as strong brown hands tried their utmost to honour Christmas day with something decent in the way of writing, each man declared that he had never written so badly before, while the company murmured:  “Oh, yours is all right.  Look at mine!”

Jack, however, was the exception; for when his turn came, with quiet humour he “thought that on the whole his was a bit better’n last Christmas,” which naturally set us discussing the advantages of learning; but when we all agreed “it would be a bit off having to employ a private secretary when you were doing a bit of courting,” Jack hastened to assure us that “courting” would never be in his line—­coming events do not always throw shadows before them.  Thus from “learning” we slipped into “courtship” and marriage, and on into life—­life and its problems—­and, chatting, agreed that, in spite of, or perhaps because of, its many acknowledged disadvantages, the simple, primitive bush-life is the sweetest and best of all—­sure that although there may have been more imposing or less unconventional feasts elsewhere that Christmas day, yet nowhere in all this old round world of ours could there have been a happier, merrier, healthier-hearted gathering.  No one was bored.  No one wished himself elsewhere.  All were sure of their welcome.  All were light-hearted and at ease; although no one so far forgot himself as to pour his hop-beer into the saucer in a lady’s presence, for, low be it spoken, although the missus had a glass tumbler, there were only two on the run, and the men-folk drank the Christmas healths from cups, and enamel at that; for a Willy-Willy had taken Cheon unaware when he was laden with a tray containing every glass and china cup fate had left us, and, as by a miracle, those two glasses had been saved from the wreckage.