o her to keep him."

"Well," said Mitchell, mildly, "but we ain't all got as much against him
as you have, Began."

"He made a crimson jail-bird of me!" snapped Bogan. "Well," said
Mitchell, "that didn't hurt you much, anyway; it rather improved
your character if anything. Besides, he made a jail-bird of himself
afterwards, so you ought to have a fellow-feeling--a feathered feeling,
so to speak. Now you needn't be offended, Bogan, we're all jail-birds at
heart, only we haven't all got the pluck."

"I'm in favour of blanky well tarrin' an' featherin' him an' kickin' him
out of the town!" shouted Bogan. "It would be a good turn to his wife,
too; she'd be well rid of the----."

"Perhaps she's fond of him," suggested Mitchell; "I've known such cases
before. I saw them sitting together on the veranda last night when they
thought no one was looking."

"He deserted her," said One-eyed Bogan, in a climbing-down tone, "and
left her to starve."

"Perhaps the police were to blame for that," said Mitchell. "You know
you deserted all your old mates once for three months, Bogan, and it
wasn't your fault."

"He seems to be a crimson pet of yours, Jack Mitchell," said Bogan,
firing up.

"Ah, well, all I know," said Mitchell, standing up and stretching
himself wearily, "all I know is that he looked like a gentleman once,
and treated us like a gentleman, and cheated us like a gentleman, and
ran some of us in like a gentleman, and, as far as I can see, he's
served his time like a gentleman and come back to face us and
live himself down like a man. I always had a sneaking regard for a
gentleman."

"Why, Mitchell, I'm beginning to think you are a gentleman yourself,"
said Jake Boreham.

"Well," said Mitchell, "I used to have a suspicion once that I had a
drop of blue blood in me somewhere, and it worried me a lot; but I asked
my old mother about it one day, and she scalded me--God bless her!--and
father chased me with a stockwhip, so I gave up making inquiries."

"You'll join the bloomin' Capitalists next," sneered One-eyed Bogan.

"I wish I could, Bogan," said Mitchell. "I'd take a trip to Paris and
see for myself whether the Frenchwomen are as bad as they're made out to
be, or go to Japan. But what are we going to do about Douglas?"

"Kick the skunk out of town, or boycott him!" said one or two. "He ought
to be tarred and feathered and hanged."

"Couldn't do worse than hang him," commented Jake Boreham, cheerfully.

"O