“Me savey all about,” he said, with a majestic wave of his hands, after expressing supreme contempt for Sam’s caste and ways; so Sam applied for his cheque, shook hands all round, and withdrew smilingly.

Sam’s account being satisfactorily “squared,” Cheon’s name was then formally entered in the station books as cook and gardener, at twenty-five shillings a week.  That was the only vacancy he ever filled in the books; but in our life at the homestead he filled almost every vacancy that required filling, and there were many.

There was nothing he could not and did not do for our good, and it was well that he refused to be instructed in anybody’s ways, for his own were delightfully disobedient and unexpected and entertaining.  Not only had we “struck the jolliest old josser going,” but a born ruler and organiser into the bargain.  He knew best what was good for us, and told us so, and, meekly bending to his will, our orders became mere suggestions to be entertained and carried out if approved of by Cheon, or dismissed as “silly-fellow” with a Podsnapian wave of his arm if they in no way appealed to him.

Full of wrath for Sam’s ways, and bubbling over with trundling energy, he calmly appropriated the whole staff, as well as Jimmy, Billy Muck, and the rejected, and within a week had put backbone into everything that lacked it, from the water-butts to old Jimmy.

The first two days were spent in a whirlwind of dust and rubbish, turned out from unguessed-at recesses, and Cheon’s jovial humour suiting his helpers to a nicety, the rubbish was dealt with amid shouts of delight and enjoyment; until Jimmy, losing his head in his lightness of heart, dug Cheon in the ribs, and, waving a stick over his head, yelled in mock fierceness:  “Me wild-fellow, black fellow.  Me myall-fellow.”

Then Cheon came out in a new role.  Without a moment’s hesitation his arms and legs appeared to fly out all together in Jimmy’s direction, completely doubling him up.

“Me myall-fellow, too,” Cheon said calmly, master of himself and the situation.  Then, chuckling at Jimmy’s discomfiture, he went on with his work, while his helpers stared open-eyed with amazement; an infuriated Chinese catherine-wheel being something new in the experience of a black fellow.  It was a wholesome lesson, though, and no one took liberties with Cheon again.

The rubbish disposed of, leaking water-butts, and the ruins of collapsed water-butts, were carried to the billabong, swelled in the water, hammered and hooped back into steadfast, reliable water-butts, and trundled along to their places in a merry, joyous procession.

With Cheon’s hand on the helm, cream rose on the milk from somewhere.  The meat no longer turned sour.  An expert fisherman was discovered among the helpers—­one Bob by name.  Cheon’s shot-gun appeared to have a magnetic attraction for wild duck.  A garden sprang up as by magic, grasshoppers being literally chased off the vegetables.  The only thing we lacked was butter; and after a week of order and cleanliness and dazzlingly varied menus, we wondered how we had ever existed without them.