sui generis_."

"All burra sahib like durian," said the Kling, showing his white teeth.

"Then the burra sahibs have got precious bad taste," said Tom Long, just
as Bob put the first piece of the fruit into his mouth, rolled his eyes,
and looked as if he were about to eject it into the stream, but did not;
gave it a twist round, tasted it; looked less serious; began to
masticate; and swallowing the piece, proceeded to take a little more.

"There, it won't do, Bob Roberts," said Tom Long; "say it's horrible,
like a man. You can't deceive me. What does it taste like?"

"Don't know yet," said Bob trying the second piece.

"What a jackass you are to torture yourself like that, to try and take
me in, middy!"

Bob helped himself to a little more.

"Well, what does it taste like?"

"Custard," said Bob, working away hard, and speaking between every dig
of his knife; "candles, cream cheese, onion sauce, tipsy cake, bad
butter, almonds, sherry and bitters, banana, old shoes, turpentine,
honey, peach and beeswax. Here, I say; give us a bit more, old cock."

Tom Long was astounded, for after finishing the first piece of the
evil-smelling dainty, Bob had begun the second, and was toiling at it
with a patient industry that showed thorough appreciation of the most
peculiar fruit in the world.

"Tipsy cake, bad butter, old shoes, peach and beeswax," and the other
incongruities, rang in Long's ear; and to prove that he was not
deceiving him, there was Bob eating away as if his soul were in the
endeavour to prove how much he could dispose of at one go.

It was too much for Tom Long; his curiosity was roused to the highest
point, and as the Kling was smilingly watching Bob, Tom signed to the
Malay to give him a piece.

The solemn-looking Asiatic picked up another fruit, and while Tom looked
impatiently on, it was opened, and a piece handed to him, which he took,
and with Bob's example before his eyes took a greedy bite--uttered a cry
of disgust--and flung the piece in hand at the giver.

The Malayan character has been aptly described as volcanic. The pent-up
fire of his nature slumbers long sometimes, beneath his calm,
imperturbable, dignified exterior; but the fire lies smouldering within,
and upon occasions it bursts out, carrying destruction before it.

In this case Tom Long's folly--worse, his insult to the master of the
sampan--roused the fiery Malay on the instant to fury, as he realised
the fact that the youth h