"As you've no bags it's plain to see
A traveller you cannot be;
And as a swag you haven't either
You cannot be a swagman neither.
For travellers must carry bags,
And swagmen have to hump their swags
Like bottle-ohs or ragmen.
As you have neither swag nor bag
You must remain a simple wag,
And not a swag- or bagman."
"Dear me," said Bunyip Bluegum, "I never thought of that.
What must I do in order to see the world without carrying swags
or bags?"
The Poet thought deeply, put on his eyeglass, and said
impressively--
"Take my advice, don't carry bags,
For bags are just as bad as swags;
They're never made to measure.
To see the world, your simple trick
Is but to take a walking-stick
Assume an air of pleasure,
And tell the people near and far
You stroll about because you are
A Gentleman of Leisure."
"You have solved the problem," said Bunyip Bluegum, and wringing
his friend's hand, he ran straight home, took his Uncle's
walking-stick, and, assuming an air of pleasure, set off to see
the world.
He found a great many things to see, such as dandelions, and ants,
and traction engines, and bolting horses, and furniture being
removed, besides being kept busy raising his hat, and passing the
time of day with people on the road, for he was a very well-bred
young fellow, polite in his manners, graceful in his attitudes, and
able to converse on a great variety of subjects, having read all
the best Australian poets.
Unfortunately, in the hurry of leaving home, he had forgotten to
provide himself with food, and at lunch time found himself attacked
by the pangs of hunger.
"Dear me," he said, "I feel quite faint. I had no idea that
one's stomach was so important. I have everything I require,
except food; but without food everything is rather less than
nothing.
"I've got a stick to walk with.
I've got a mind to think with.
I've got a voice to talk with.
I've got an eye to wink with.
I've lots of teeth to eat with,
A brand new hat to bow with,
A pair of fists to beat with,
A rage to have a row with.
No joy it brings
To have indeed
A lot of things
One does not need.
Observe my doleful-plight.
For here am I without a crumb
To satisfy a raging turn
0 what an oversight!"
As he was indulging in these melancholy reflections he came round
a bend in the road, and discovered two people in the very act of
having lunch. These people were none other than Bill Barnacle,
the sailor, and his friend, Sam Sawnoff, the penguin bold.
Bill was a small man with a large hat, a beard half as large as his
hat, and feet half as large as his beard. Sam Sawnoff's feet were
sitting down and his body was standing up, because his feet were
so short and his body so long that he had to do both together.
They had a pudding in a basin, and the smell that arose from it
was so delightful that Bunyip Bluegum was quite unable to pass on.
"Pardon me," he said, raising his hat, "but am I right in
supposing that this is a steak-and-kidney pudding?"
"At present it is," said Bill Barnacle.
"It smells delightful," said Bunyip Bluegum.
"It is delightful," said Bill, eating a large mouthful.
Bunyip Bluegum was too much of a gentleman to invite himself to
lunch, but he said carelessly, "Am I right in supposing that
there are onions in this pudding?"
Before Bill could reply, a thick, angry voice came out of the
pudding, saying--
"Onions, bunions, corns and crabs,
Whiskers, wheels and hansom cabs,
Beef and bottles, beer and bones,
Give him a feed and end his groans."
"Albert, Albert," said Bill to the Puddin', "where's your manners?"
"Where's yours?" said the Puddin' rudely, "guzzling away
there, and never so much as offering this stranger a slice."
"There you are," said Bill. "There's nothing this Puddin' enjoys
more than offering slices of himself to strangers."
"How very polite of him," said Bunyip, but the Puddin' replied
loudly--
"Politeness be sugared, politeness be hanged,
Politeness be jumbled and tumbled and banged.
It's simply a matter of putting on pace,
Politeness has nothing to do with the case."
"Always anxious to be eaten," said Bill, "that's this Puddin's
mania. Well, to oblige him, I ask you to join us at lunch."
"Delighted, I'm sure," said Bunyip, seating himself. "There's
nothing I enjoy more than a good go in at steak-and-kidney
pudding in the open air."
"Well said," remarked Sam Sawnoff, patting him on the back.
"Hearty eaters are always welcome."
"You'll enjoy this Puddin'," said Bill, handing him a large
slice. "This is a very rare Puddin'."
"It's a cut-an'-come-again Puddin'," said Sam.
"It's a Christmas steak and apple-dumpling Puddin'," said Bill.
"It's a --. Shall I tell him?" he asked, looking at Bill. Bill
nodded, and the Penguin leaned across to Bunyip Bluegum and said in
a low voice, "It's a Magic Puddin'."
"No whispering," shouted the Puddin' angrily. "Speak up. Don't
strain a Puddin's ears at the meal table."
"No harm intended, Albert," said Sam, "I was merely remarking
how well the crops are looking. Call him Albert when addressing
him," he added to Bunyip Bluegum. "It soothes him."
"I am delighted to make your acquaintance, Albert," said Bunyip.
"No soft soap from total strangers," said the Puddin', rudely.
"Don't take no notice of him, mate," said Bill, "That's only his
rough and ready way. What this Puddin' requires is politeness
and constant eatin'."
They had a delightful meal, eating as much as possible, for
whenever they stopped eating the Puddin' sang out
"Eat away, chew away, munch and bolt and guzzle,
Never leave the table till you're full up to the muzzle."
But at length they had to stop, in spite of these encouraging
remarks, and as they refused to eat any more, the Puddin' got
out of his basin, remarking--"If you won't eat any more here's
giving you a run for the sake of exercise," and he set off so
swiftly on a pair of extremely thin legs that Bill had to run
like an antelope to catch him up. "My word," said Bill, when
the Puddin' was brought back. "You have to be as smart as paint
to keep this Puddin' in order. He's that artful, lawyers couldn't
manage him. Put your hat on, Albert, like a little gentleman,"
he added, placing the basin on his head. He took the Puddin's hand,
Sam took the other, and they all set off along the road. A peculiar
thing about the Puddin' was that, though they had all had a great
many slices off him, there was no sign of the place whence the
slices had been cut.
"That's where the Magic comes in," explained Bill. "The more
you eats the more you gets. Cut-an'-come-again is his name,
an' cut, an' come again, is his nature. Me an' Sam has been eatin'
away at this Puddin' for years, and there's not a mark on him.
Perhaps," he added, "you would like to hear how we came to own
this remarkable Puddin'."
"Nothing would please me more," said Bunyip Bluegum.
"In that case," said Bill, "Let her go for a song.
"Ho, the cook of the 'Saucy Sausage",
Was a feller called Curry and Rice,
A son of a gun as fat as a tun
With a face as round as a hot cross bun,
Or a barrel, to be precise.
"One winter's morn we rounds the Horn,
A-rollin' homeward bound.
We strikes on the ice,
goes down in a trice,
And all on board but Curry and Rice
And me an' Sam is drowned.
"For Sam an' me an' the cook, yer see,
We climbs on a lump of ice,
And there in the sleet we suffered a treat
For several months from frozen feet,
With nothin' at all but ice to eat,
And ice does not suffice.
"And Sam and me we couldn't agree
With the cook at any price.
We was both as thin as a piece of tin
While that there cook was bustin' his skin
On nothin' to eat but ice.
"Says Sam to me, 'It's a mystery
More deep than words can utter;
Whatever we do, here's me an you,
Us both as thin as Irish stoo,
While he's as fat as butter.'
"But late one night we wakes in fright
To see by a pale blue flare,
That cook has got in a phantom pot
A big plum-duff an' a rump-steak hot,
And the guzzlin' wizard is eatin' the lot,
On top of the iceberg bare."
"There's a verse left out here," said Bill, stopping the song,
"owin' to the difficulty of explainin' exactly what happened
when me and Sam discovered the deceitful nature of that cook.
The next verse is as follows:--
"Now Sam an' me can never agree
What happened to Curry and Rice.
The whole affair is shrouded in doubt,
For the night was dark and the flare went out,
And all we heard was a startled shout,
Though I think meself, in the subsequent rout,
That us bein' thin, an' him bein' stout,
In the middle of pushin' an' shovin' about,
He--MUST HAVE FELL OFF THE ICE."
"That won't do, you know," began the Puddin', but Sam said hurriedly,
"It was very dark, and there's no sayin' at this date what happened."
"Yes there is," said the Puddin', "for I had my eye on the whole
affair, and it's my belief that if he hadn't been so round you'd
have never rolled him off the iceberg, for you was both singing
out, `Yo heave Ho' for half-an-hour, an' him trying to hold on
to Bill's beard."
"In the haste of the moment," said Bill, "he may have got a bit
of a shove, for the ice bein' slippy, and us bein' justly
enraged, and him bein' as round as a barrel, he may, as I said,
have been too fat to save himself from rollin' off the iceberg.
The point, however, is immaterial to our story, which concerns this
Puddin'; and this Puddin'," said Bill, patting him on the basin,
"was the very Puddin' that Curry and Rice invented on the
iceberg."
"He must have been a very clever cook," said Bunyip.
"He was, poor feller, he was," said Bill, greatly affected.
"For plum duff or Irish stoo there wasn't his equal in the land.
But enough of these sad subjects. Pausin' only to explain that
me an' Sam got off the iceberg on a homeward bound chicken coop,
landed on Tierra del Fuego, walked to Valparaiso, and so got home,
I will proceed to enliven the occasion with `The Ballad of the
Bo'sun's Bride'."
And without more ado, Bill, who had one of those beef-and-thunder
voices, roared out--
"Ho, aboard the Salt Junk Sarah
We was rollin' homeward bound,
When the bo'sun's bride fell over the side
And very near got drowned.
Rollin' home, rollin' home,
Rollin' home across the foam,
She had to swim to save her glim
And catch us rollin' home."
It was a very long song, so the rest of it is left out here, but
there was a great deal of rolling and roaring in it, and they all
joined in the chorus. They were all singing away at the top of
their pipe, as Bill called it, when round a bend in the road they
came on two low-looking persons hiding behind a tree. One was a
Possum, with one of those sharp, snooting, snouting sort of faces,
and the other was a bulbous, boozy-looking Wombat in an old
long-tailed coat, and a hat that marked him down as a man you
couldn't trust in the fowl-yard. They were busy sharpening up a
carving knife on a portable grindstone, but the moment they caught
sight of the travellers the Possum whipped the knife behind him and
the Wombat put his hat over the grindstone.
Bill Barnacle flew into a passion at these signs of treachery.
"I see you there," he shouted.
"You can't see all of us," shouted the Possum, and the Wombat
added, "Cause why, some of us is behind the tree."
Bill led the others aside, in order to hold a consultation.
"What on earth's to be done?" he said.
"We shall have to fight them, as usual," said Sam.
"Why do you have to fight them?" asked Bunyip Bluegum.
"Because they're after our Puddin'," said Bill.
"They're after our Puddin'," explained Sam, "because they're
professional puddin'-thieves."
"And as we're perfessional puddin'-owners," said Bill, "we have
to fight them on principle. The fighting," he added, "is a mere
flea-bite, as the sayin' goes. The trouble is, what's to be done
with the Puddin'?"
"While you do the fighting," said Bunyip bravely, "I shall mind
the Puddin'."
"The trouble is," said Bill, "that this is a very secret, crafty
Puddin', an' if you wasn't up to his games he'd be askin' you to
look at a spider an' then run away while your back is turned."
"That's right," said the Puddin', gloomily. "Take a Puddin's
character away. Don't mind his feelings."
"We don't mind your feelin's, Albert," said Bill. "What we
minds is your treacherous 'abits." But Bunyip Bluegum said, "Why
not turn him upside-down and sit on him?"
"What a brutal suggestion," said the Puddin'; but no notice was
taken of his objections, and as soon as he was turned safely
upside down, Bill and Sam ran straight at the puddin'-thieves and
commenced sparring up at them with the greatest activity.
"Put 'em up, ye puddin'-snatchers," shouted Bill. "Don't keep us
sparrin' up here all day. Come out an' take your gruel while
you've got the chance."
The Possum wished to turn the matter off by saying, "I see the
price of eggs has gone up again," but Bill gave him a punch on the
snout that bent it like a carrot, and Sam caught the Wombat such a
flip with his flapper that he gave in at once.
"I shan't be able to fight any more this afternoon," said the
Wombat, "as I've got sore feet." The Possum said hurriedly, "We
shall be late for that appointment," and they took their grindstone
and off they went.
But when they were a safe distance away the Possum sang out:
"You'll repent this conduct. You'll repent bending a man's snout
so that he can hardly see over it, let alone breathe through it
with comfort," and the Wombat added, "For shame, flapping a man
with sore feet."
"We laugh with scorn at threats," said Bill, and he added as a
warning--
"I don't repent a snout that's bent,
And if again I tap it,
Oh, with a clout I'll bend that snout
With force enough to snap it."
and Sam added for the Wombat's benefit--
"I take no shame to fight the lame
When they deserve to cop it.
So do not try to pipe your eye,
Or with my flip I'll flop it."
The puddin'-thieves disappeared over the hill and, as the evening
happened to come down rather suddenly at that moment, Bill said,
"Business bein' over for the day, now's the time to set about
makin' the camp fire."
This was a welcome suggestion, for, as all travellers know, if you
don't sit by a camp fire in the evening, you have to sit by
nothing in the dark, which is a most unsociable way of spending
your time. They found a comfortable nook under the hedge, where
there were plenty of dry leaves to rest on, and there they built
a fire, and put the billy on, and made tea. The tea and sugar and
three tin cups and half a pound of mixed biscuits were brought out
of the bag by Sam, while Bill cut slices of steak-and-kidney from
the Puddin'. After that they had boiled jam roll and apple
dumpling, as the fancy took them, for if you wanted a change of
food from the Puddin', all you had to do was to whistle twice and
turn the basin round.
After they had eaten as much as they wanted, the things were put
away in the bag, and they settled down comfortably for the
evening. "This is what I call grand," said Bill, cutting up his
tobacco. "Full-and-plenty to eat, pipes goin' and the evenin's
enjoyment before us. Tune up on the mouth-organ, Sam, an' off she
goes with a song."
They had a mouth-organ in the bag which they took turns at
playing, and Bill led off with a song which he said was called