We are being severally introduced with all due ceremony. The little beauty is not by any means disconcerted at the ordeal; she is evidently used to the position she occupies; used to being regarded with awe as a superior being by ranks and regiments of bearded bushmen. She receives our reverential bows with an amused expression in her blue eyes, and shakes hands with us, one by one, with the air of a princess according gracious favours to her subjects. And a funny little incident occurs.
Miss Fairweather remarks to the Little'un that she thinks she has met him before; in Auckland, probably. Either she is mistaken, or, the Little'un has forgotten, and is shamefaced. He blushes the colour of beet-root. His huge frame wobbles in confusion; and, awkwardly trying to shrink out of sight, as his bashful habit is, he steps backward, and plants a giant heel upon O'Gaygun's toe. That outraged individual startles the assemblage with the sudden exclamation, "Gosh!" Endeavouring to extricate himself, he lumbers against the Saint and Dark Charlie, whom he sends flying into a centre-table. The table overturns, of course, and Dark Charlie's short, thick person sprawls and flounders heavily over it.
The ice is now thoroughly broken. The ladies fall into seats, fairly screaming with laughter, and all of us, except the unlucky ones, begin to feel more at home. Then Mrs. Member tells her friend all sorts of wild legends about our shanty, such as obtain among the feminine public of the district. She says we are just a pack of overgrown schoolboys, who are rapidly turning into absolute savages. And they banter us deliciously to their hearts' content.
But we are not noisy visitors, you know, on such occasions as these. On the contrary, the ladies do most of the talking, as some of us are absolutely tongue-tied. We can do nothing but sit and gaze at the young lady in our midst with all our eyes. She is a houri straight from Paradise, and we poor mortals just get a glimpse from beyond the gate, as it were.
Then more arrivals keep dropping in by twos and threes, neighbouring settlers and chums of ours. So at last a circle of some thirty more or less rough-looking men form a court about those two ladies. Then we go to dinner in another room. Most of us dine chiefly off Miss Fairweather, devouring her with our admiring gaze, listening enraptured to her chat, and pulsating with wild joy if she do but smile or speak to us personally. Many can hardly eat anything; they are too love-sick already.