The King had Coronation demonstrations all over his empire, and at many of them a whole ox may have been roasted in the good old English way; but I doubt if he had a stranger or a merrier one than ours, in the very heart of the Never-Never Land.
Some weeks afterwards we heard of the King’s illness, and of the postponing of the Coronation, and knew that after all we had missed the real Coronation Day, but we had paid our homage to our King, and we were satisfied.
Chapter 10
“Looking-Out Lily-Root”
Bett-Bett and I very often went down to the billabong for an early morning “bogey,” and she and the lubras were always greatly amused at my bathing-gown. They called it “that one bogey dress,” and said it was “silly fellow.”
My swimming also amused them. They saw something very comical and unnatural in my movements, and I often caught them imitating me. They seemed to expect me to sink every moment, and never went very far from me in case of accidents.
One morning we swam right across the billabong to the “nuzzer side,” as Bett-Bett called it, and there I noticed a man’s tracks on the bank, and asked whose they were; for of course I did not recognize them. To my surprise the lubras burst into shrieks of laughter.
“Him Maluka!” they shouted in delight; “him track belonga Maluka; him bin bogey last night.” Then Bett-Bett screamed to the lubras on the opposite bank—
“Missus no more savey track belonga Boss.”
It was the best joke they had ever heard—a woman who did not know her own husband’s tracks! I felt very small indeed, and as soon as possible went back to the house and breakfast.