“It’s a cut-an’-come-again Puddin’,” said Sam.

“It’s a Christmas steak and apple-dumpling Puddin’,” said Bill.

“It’s a —.  Shall I tell him?” he asked, looking at Bill.  Bill nodded, and the Penguin leaned across to Bunyip Bluegum and said in a low voice, “It’s a Magic Puddin’.”

“No whispering,” shouted the Puddin’ angrily.  “Speak up.  Don’t strain a Puddin’s ears at the meal table.”

“No harm intended, Albert,” said Sam, “I was merely remarking how well the crops are looking.  Call him Albert when addressing him,” he added to Bunyip Bluegum.  “It soothes him.”

“I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Albert,” said Bunyip.

“No soft soap from total strangers,” said the Puddin’, rudely.

“Don’t take no notice of him, mate,” said Bill, “That’s only his rough and ready way.  What this Puddin’ requires is politeness and constant eatin’.”

They had a delightful meal, eating as much as possible, for whenever they stopped eating the Puddin’ sang out

“Eat away, chew away, munch and bolt and guzzle, Never leave the table till you’re full up to the muzzle.”

But at length they had to stop, in spite of these encouraging remarks, and as they refused to eat any more, the Puddin’ got out of his basin, remarking—­“If you won’t eat any more here’s giving you a run for the sake of exercise,” and he set off so swiftly on a pair of extremely thin legs that Bill had to run like an antelope to catch him up.  “My word,” said Bill, when the Puddin’ was brought back.  “You have to be as smart as paint to keep this Puddin’ in order.  He’s that artful, lawyers couldn’t manage him.  Put your hat on, Albert, like a little gentleman,” he added, placing the basin on his head.  He took the Puddin’s hand, Sam took the other, and they all set off along the road.  A peculiar thing about the Puddin’ was that, though they had all had a great many slices off him, there was no sign of the place whence the slices had been cut.

“That’s where the Magic comes in,” explained Bill.  “The more you eats the more you gets.  Cut-an’-come-again is his name, an’ cut, an’ come again, is his nature.  Me an’ Sam has been eatin’ away at this Puddin’ for years, and there’s not a mark on him.  Perhaps,” he added, “you would like to hear how we came to own this remarkable Puddin’.”

“Nothing would please me more,” said Bunyip Bluegum.

“In that case,” said Bill, “Let her go for a song.

“Ho, the cook of the ’Saucy Sausage”,
  Was a feller called Curry and Rice,
A son of a gun as fat as a tun
With a face as round as a hot cross bun,
  Or a barrel, to be precise.

“One winter’s morn we rounds the Horn,
  A-rollin’ homeward bound. 
We strikes on the ice,
goes down in a trice,
And all on board but Curry and Rice
  And me an’ Sam is drowned.

“For Sam an’ me an’ the cook, yer see,
  We climbs on a lump of ice,
And there in the sleet we suffered a treat
For several months from frozen feet,
With nothin’ at all but ice to eat,
  And ice does not suffice.