We even indulge in a game or two of billiards, a rare novelty and luxury to us bush-farmers of the Kaipara. And we gaze with admiration and reverence upon the well-displayed charms and attractions of the barmaids in the saloons.
One of these ladies, more affable and less assuming than her sisters, who are haughtily inflated with the deep reverence and homage of thirsty crowds of men, actually condescends to favour us with a few words of conversation. We are gratified and honoured beyond measure.
This most gracious lady informs us that the proprietor of her bar is about to erect an hotel on the new field, and that she is going up to tend bar there. But it appears that the glorious profession of which she is a member is not what it was. Certain regulations that mine-owners have lately made, anent the taking of "specimens" from the mines by the paid miners, have almost destroyed a poor girl's chances. She relates a legend about "the first barmaid" who appeared at Grahamstown, her predecessor at this very bar. That lady was the cynosure and magnet for countless courtiers, of course, and she would seem to have been a very practical and square-headed young woman. Her many admirers found that to gain a word, a look, a smile, a ravishment of whatever kind, it was needful to offer a frequent "specimen" for the lady's acceptance.
"She was dashing, you know, but not a beauty by any means," says our informant, with a toss of her be-chignoned head. After a few months, she sent a boxful of "specimens," the cherished donations of her hundred slaves, to be crushed at one of the batteries. They realized, so rumour hath it, some ten or twelve thousand pounds. And the fair one, satisfied with having blandished this pile out of the Thames, and probably finding her opportunities at an end, winged her triumphant flight back to England.
The gorgeous and bedizened beauty who treats us to this tale, hopes to do likewise at Ohinemuri. Her attractions are greater than those of the lucky princess she has been telling us about; or, no doubt, she secretly considers that they are. She hopes to see us at her new bar, and trusts we will remember to bring her a "specimen" now and then. This with a flash of black eyes, that makes the giant Little'un shiver with emotion in his number fourteen boots, and leaves us both helpless victims of the siren.