"
Then finding every one sympathetic, he broached a delicate subject. By
some freak of chance, he said, the missus was the only person who had
succeeded in growing good melons this year, and taking her to the melon
beds, which the grasshoppers had also passed by, he looked longingly at
three great fruits that lay like mossy green boulders among the rich
foliage. "Just chance," he reiterated, and surely the missus would see
that chance also favoured our "Clisymus." "A Clisymus without dessert
would be no Clisymus at all," he continued, pressing each fruit in turn
between loving hands until it squeaked in response. "Him close up ripe,
missus. Him sing out!" he said, translating the squeak.
But the missus appeared strangely inattentive, and in desperation Cheon
humbled himself and apologised handsomely for former scoffings. Not
chance, he said, but genius! Never was there white woman like the
missus! "Him savey all about," he assured the Maluka. "Him plenty savey
gardin." Further, she was a woman in a thousand! A woman all China would
bow down to! Worth ninety-one-hundred pounds in any Chinese matrimonial
market.
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