“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.”