“Niver a speck,” cried Larry O’Neil, setting to with energy to assist in preparing dinner.
“Well, friends, I’ve a plan to propose to you, so let us take the edge off our appetites, and I’ll explain.”
Ned sat down tailor-fashion on the ground with his companions round him, and, while they devoted themselves ravenously and silently to tea, flour-cake, salt-pork, and beans, he explained to them the details of his plan, which explanation, (if it was not the dinner), had the effect of raising their spirits greatly. Instead, therefore, of repairing to their profitless claims after dinner, they went in a body up the stream to visit the Chinaman’s diggings. Captain Bunting alone remained behind, as his claim was turning out a first-rate one.
“Sure, there’s a human!” cried Larry, as they turned a projecting point, about an hour and a half later, and came in sight of Ah-wow’s “lo-cation,” as the Yankees termed it.
“It may be a human,” remarked Ned, laughing, “but it’s the most inhuman one I ever saw. I think yonder fellow must be performing a surgical operation on the Chinaman’s head.”
Ah-wow was seated on a stone in front of his own log-hut, with his arms resting on his knees, and an expression of supreme felicity on his yellow face, while a countryman, in what appeared a night-gown, and an immense straw hat, dressed his tail for him.
Lest uninformed readers should suppose that Ah-wow belonged to the monkey-tribe, we may mention that the Chinaman’s head was shaved quite bald all round, with the exception of a tail of hair, about two feet long, and upwards of an inch thick, which jutted from the top of his caput, and hung down his back. This tail he was in the act of getting dressed when our party of miners broke in upon the privacy of his dressing-room.
Ah-wow had a nose which was very flat and remarkably broad, with the nostrils pointing straight to the front. He also had a mouth which was extremely large, frightfully thick-lipped, and quite the reverse of pretty. He had two eyes, also, not placed, like the eyes of ordinary men, across his face, on either side of his nose, but set in an angular manner on his visage, so that the outer corners pointed a good deal upwards, and the inner corners pointed a good deal downwards—towards the point of his nose, or, rather, towards that vacant space in front of his nostrils which would have been the point of his nose if that member had had a point at all. Ah-wow also had cheek bones which were uncommonly high, and a forehead which was preposterously low, and a body which was rather squat, and a tout ensemble which was desperately ugly. Like his hairdresser, he wore a coat somewhat resembling a night-shirt, with a belt round it, and his feet were thrust into yellow slippers. These last, when he went to dig for gold, he exchanged for heavy boots.
When Ned and his friends walked up and stood in a grinning row before him, Ah-wow opened his little eyes to the uttermost, (which wasn’t much), and said, “How!”
If he had affixed “d’ye do” to it, the sentence would have been complete and intelligible. His companion attempted to vary the style of address by exclaiming, “Ho!”