Page:The life and letters of Sir John Henniker Heaton bt. (IA lifelettersofsi00port).pdf/206

 some dexterity in "boiling a billy" and making damper—a mixture of flour and water baked in the ashes of a camp-fire—H. H. felt himself in a position to entertain his friends on a somewhat more lavish scale. He was at the time camping out with four friends, and they resolved to commemorate Christmas Day by giving a dinner-party.

The pièce de résistance was a chicken which they managed to procure at untold trouble from a great distance. For weeks and weeks the chicken was fed, and watched with the care usually devoted only to prize birds at annual fairs. Far and wide, H. H. and his friends let it be known that their dinner-party was to include this exquisite morsel.

The day arrived, and H. H. elected to kill and cook the bird himself. When the moment arrived, he proudly carried in the billy containing the chicken and lifted the cover. The next moment one of his friends had seized the bird and with a volley of oaths flung it at the head of H. H. The whole party rushed into the open air and fell on H. H. in a body. Poor H. H.! heHe [sic] had flung the bird straight into the pot after having plucked it, under the impression that no other preparations were necessary before cooking a chicken! That day they had cold mutton for their Christmas dinner. Every housewife, from the Barcoo to Sydney, smiled when she heard the story.

Years afterwards, when H. H. was a constant and popular host in the House of Commons, he would remember the fiasco of his first essay in entertaining his friends.

In early days H. H. came into contact with the pleasant happy life led by the squatters, whose princely hospitality was already a byword. He never forgot the