"Can it be that they are presenting us with all that?" Charmian
whispered.
"Impossible," I muttered back. "Why should they be giving it to us?
Besides, there is no room on the Snark for it. We could not eat a
tithe of it. The rest would spoil. Maybe they are inviting us to
the feast. At any rate, that they should give all that to us is
impossible."
Nevertheless we found ourselves once more in the high seat of
abundance. The orator, by gestures unmistakable, in detail
presented every item in the mountain to us, and next he presented it
to us in toto. It was an embarrassing moment. What would you do if
you lived in a hall bedroom and a friend gave you a white elephant?
Our Snark was no more than a hall bedroom, and already she was
loaded down with the abundance of Tahaa. This new supply was too
much. We blushed, and stammered, and mauruuru'd. We mauruuru'd
with repeated nui's which conveyed the largeness and
overwhelmingness of our thanks. At the same time, by signs, we
committed the awful breach of etiquette of not accepting the
present. The himine singers' disappointment was plainly betrayed,
and that evening, aided by Tehei, we compromised by accepting one
chicken, one bunch of bananas, one bunch of taro, and so on down the
list.
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