This performance completely demoralized the Chinamen who caught sight of it.

"Eyah!" they cried, they stopped work, they chuckled, they yelled; they doubled themselves up, some of their pig-tails came down, and one and all they laughed so frankly and immoderately, it was hard to believe that anything like deception could be amongst the faults of these almond-eyed children of the Flowery-Land.
Mr.Macdonald (the store-owner) seemed, however, to think that they required pretty close watching, and I do not think he would have been willing to let Alister go back with us to luncheon at Willie's, but for his appreciation of social rank.

It was obvious that it did Alister no harm that he had a friend in an officer of her Majesty's Service, and a comrade in the nephew of a sugar-planter of the uppermost level of Demerara society.
We three held a fresh council as we sat with the young engineer.

He and Alister got on admirably, and he threw himself into our affairs with wonderful kindness.

One point he disposed of at once, and that was _my_ fate! There could be no question, he said, that my duty was to get back to Halifax, "report myself" to Uncle Henry's agent there, and then go home.
"You're ruthlessly dismembering the Shamrock, Willie," Dennis objected.
"I don't see that.