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.
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