hat, if for no
other reason, he did not see how anything real or imaginary could "come
off," in the light of the munificent rate of pay wherewith a paternal
Government saw fit to remunerate the labours of the junior members of
its judicial service. Then he turned the conversation into other
channels, and thus, alternately subsiding into silence as the nature of
their work required, and smoking a pipe or two and narrating an anecdote
as something suggested one to either, this happily assorted brace of
officials got through the first half of an afternoon, until the tread of
a pair of heavy boots on the boarded floor of the Court-room without was
heard drawing near.

"Some confounded Boer, I suppose, who'll extend a clammy paw, and put
his hat on the ground and spit five times, preparatory to beginning some
outrageous lie," growled Roden, thinking it was about time to take
himself off.

"May I come in?" sang out a voice.

"Hallo! It's Suffield. Come in, Suffield!" cried the magistrate,
jumping up.

"Busy, I see!" said Suffield, having shaken hands, and looking rather
awkward, for what with Mona worrying his life out for the last half
hour, and what with the confounded cheek, as he reckoned it, of
suggesting that Musgrave should knock off work and come along, he felt
himself in that figurative but highly graphic predicament known as
between the devil and the deep sea. But the eyes of the most
good-natured man in the world read and interpreted his look.

"Going to take him away with you, Suffield?" he said.

"Well--um--ah--"

"Off you go, Musgrave; I expect Miss Ridsdale will comb your hair for
you for keeping her waiting, and it's nearly five. And I say,
Suffield," he called out after them when they were leaving; "don't let
him try to tumble over any more cliffs, eh! So long!" and chuckling
heartily, the genial official turned back to light a fresh pipe and do
another hoar of his own work, and that of his assistant too.

Ambling along the dusty waggon road which led up to the grassy _nek_
about a mile from the township, preparatory to striking off into the
open veldt beyond, the trio were in good spirits enough.

"Well, and why haven't you blown me up for keeping you waiting?" said
Roden.

"Do I ever blow you up? Besides, you couldn't help it," answered Mona.

"Ah, `To err is human' says the classic bard. He might have added, `to
blow a man up for what he can't help is feminine.'"

"Don't be cynical