apply to the Secretary for leave to
go to Sydney at once.'

'At my own expense?' said Bagwax, horrified.

'Certainly not;--but that you might have an opportunity of investigating
all this for the public service. It'll get referred round in some way to
the Secretary of State, who can't but say all that you've done. When it
gets out of a man's own office he don't so much mind doing a little job.
It sounds good-natured. And then if they don't do anything for you,
you'll get a grievance. Next to a sum of money down, a grievance is the
best thing you can have. A man who can stick to a grievance year after
year will always make money of it at last.'

On the Saturday, Bagwax went down to Apricot Lodge, having been invited
to stay with his beloved till the Monday. In the smiles of his beloved
he did find much consolation, especially as it had already been assured
to him that sixty pounds a-year would be settled on Jemima on and from
her wedding-day. And then they made very much of him. 'You do love me,
Tom; don't you?' said Jemima. They were sitting on camp-stools behind
the grotto, and Bagwax answered by pressing the loved one's waist.
'Better than going to Sydney, Tom,--don't you?'

'It is so very different,' said Bagwax,--which was true.

'If you don't like me better than anything else in all the world,
however different, I will never stand at the altar with you.' And she
moved her camp-stool perhaps an inch away.

'In the way of loving, of course I do.'

'Then why do you grieve when you've got what you like best?'

'You don't understand, Jemima, what a spirit of adventure means.'

'I think I do, or I shouldn't be going to marry you. That's quite as
great an adventure as a journey to Sydney. You ought to be very glad to
get off, now you're going to settle down as a married man.'

'Think what two hundred pounds would be, Jemima;--in the way of
furniture.'

'That's papa's putting in, I know. I hate all that hankering after
filthy lucre. You ought to be ashamed of wanting to go so far away just
when you're engaged You wouldn't care about leaving me, I suppose the
least.'

'I should always be thinking of you.'

'Yes, you would! But suppose I wasn't thinking of you. Suppose I took to
thinking of somebody else. How would it be then?'

'You wouldn't do that, Jemima.'

'You ought to know when you're well off, Tom.' By this time he had
recovered the inch and perhaps a little more. 'You ought to feel that
you've ple