ous Gaelic,
from which race he had originated.

'Any admittance, Mrs Gildea, except on business, during working hours?'

'Yes, it is working hours Colin, but you happen to be business because
you're just the person I'm wanting to speak to, so come along.'

'Good for me, Joan,' and the man came along, clearing the rest of the
garden path and the veranda steps in three strides.

He gripped Mrs Gildea's hand.

'You're nice and cool up here, and you get every bit of wind that's
going along the river,' he said. 'It's a good thing you kept this
humpey, Joan--a little nest for the bird to fly home to, eh?'

'Yes, I'm glad, though it seemed a silly piece of sentiment ... and, as
you say, I always FELT the old bird might want to fly home for a bit
some day. Well, YOU look cool enough, Colin.'

'This is temperate zone for me after the Leura.... But it's a hot March
because we haven't had a proper rainy season, and I'll just stand here
and catch the breeze for a minute or two before I sit down.'

He balanced himself on the veranda railing: took off his broad-brimmed
Panama hat and mopped his forehead with a silk handkerchief. Mrs Gildea
surveyed him with interested admiration.

A big man--large-limbed, bony--a typical Scotcher in that--with thin
flanks, a well-set up back and massive shoulders. His face was
browny-red all over except where the skin ran white under the hair and
there was a ruddier ring round the upper part of the throat. His nose
was thin between the eyes, broadening lower, high-bridged and with high
cut nostrils, showing the sensitive red when he was enraged--as not
infrequently happened. He had large honest blue eyes, intensely blue,
of the fiery description with a trick of dropping the lids when he was
in doubt or consideration. They were expressive eyes, as a rule keen
and hard, but they could soften unexpectedly under the influence of
emotion. At other times, according to the quality of the emotion, they
glowed literally like blue flames. He was considered queer-tempered,
rather sulky, and his face often took on a very unyielding expression.

He had thick reddish-yellow eyebrows at the base of a slightly receding
forehead--wanting in benevolence, phrenologists would have said, and
with the bump of self-esteem considerably developed. His hair was
yellow, pure and simple--the color of spun silk, only coarser, and it
would have curled at the ends had he not worn it close-cropped. His
moustache and bear