r a boss
with a big family--it's hard enough to keep a single boss nowadays in
this country."

After one stormy election, at the end of a long and bitter shearing
strike, One-eyed Bogan, his trusty enemy, Barcoo-Rot, and one or two
other enthusiastic reformers were charged with rioting, and got from one
to three months' hard. And they had only smashed three windows of the
Imperial Hotel and chased the Chinese cook into the river.

"I used to have some hopes for Democracy," commented Mitchell, "but I've
got none now. How can you expect Liberty, Equality or Fraternity--how
can you expect Freedom and Universal Brotherhood and Equal Rights in a
country where Sons of Light get three months' hard for breaking windows
and bashing a Chinaman? It almost makes me long to sail away in a
gallant barque."

There were other cases in connection with the rotten-egging of
Capitalistic candidates on the Imperial Hotel balcony, and it was partly
on the evidence of Douglas and his friends that certain respectable
Labour leaders got heavy terms of imprisonment for rioting and
"sedition" and "inciting," in connection with organized attacks on
blacklegs and their escorts.

Retribution, if it was retribution, came suddenly and in a most
unexpected manner to Lord Douglas.

It seems he employed a second carpenter for six months to repair and
make certain additions to the hotel, and put him off under various
pretences until he owed him a hundred pounds or thereabout. At last,
immediately after an exciting interview with Lord Douglas, the carpenter
died suddenly of heart disease. The widow, a strong-minded bushwoman,
put a bailiff in the hotel on a very short notice--and against the
advice of her lawyer, who thought the case hopeless--and the Lord
Douglas bubble promptly burst. He had somehow come to be regarded as the
proprietor of the hotel, but now the real proprietors or proprietor--he
was still said to be a priest--turned Douglas out and put in a new
manager. The old servants were paid after some trouble. The local
storekeepers and one or two firms in Sydney, who had large accounts
against the Imperial Hotel (and had trusted it, mainly because it was
patronized by Capitalism and Fat), were never paid.

Lord Douglas cleared out to Sydney, leaving his wife and children, for
the present, with her brother, a hay-and-corn storekeeper, who also had
a large and hopeless account against the hotel; and when the brother
went broke and left the