the blazes is the matter with you? You'll have rats if you
don't look out!"

"JIMMINY FROTH!--It was ME all the time!"

"What?"

"It was me that was with her all them nights. It was me that you seen.
WHY, I POPPED ON THE WOODHEAP!"

Dave was taken too suddenly to whistle this time.

"And you went for her just now?"

"Yes!" yelled Andy.

"Well--you've done it!"

"Yes," said Andy, hopelessly; "I've done it!"

Dave whistled now--a very long, low whistle. "Well, you're a bloomin'
goat, Andy, after this. But this thing'll have to be fixed up!" and he
cantered away. Poor Andy was too badly knocked to notice the abruptness
of Dave's departure, or to see that he turned through the sliprails on
to the track that led to Porter's.

. . . . .

Half an hour later Andy appeared at Porter's back door, with an
expression on his face as though the funeral was to start in ten
minutes. In a tone befitting such an occasion, he wanted to see Lizzie.

Dave had been there with the laudable determination of fixing the
business up, and had, of course, succeeded in making it much worse than
it was before. But Andy made it all right.

The Iron-Bark Chip

Dave Regan and party--bush-fencers, tank-sinkers, rough carpenters,
&c.--were finishing the third and last culvert of their contract on
the last section of the new railway line, and had already sent in their
vouchers for the completed contract, so that there might be no excuse
for extra delay in connection with the cheque.

Now it had been expressly stipulated in the plans and specifications
that the timber for certain beams and girders was to be iron-bark and
no other, and Government inspectors were authorised to order the removal
from the ground of any timber or material they might deem inferior,
or not in accordance with the stipulations. The railway contractor's
foreman and inspector of sub-contractors was a practical man and a
bushman, but he had been a timber-getter himself; his sympathies were
bushy, and he was on winking terms with Dave Regan. Besides, extended
time was expiring, and the contractors were in a hurry to complete the
line. But the Government inspector was a reserved man who poked round
on his independent own and appeared in lonely spots at unexpected
times--with apparently no definite object in life--like a grey kangaroo
bothered by a new wire fence, but unsuspicious of the presence of
humans. He wore a grey suit, rode, or mostly le