teely."

"And," added Steelman, solemnly and grimly, "if you get taken down for
'em, or lose 'em out of the top-hole in your pocket, or spend so much as
a shilling in riotous living, I'll stoush you, Smith."

Smith didn't seem interested. They sat on the beds opposite each other
for two or three minutes, in something of the atmosphere that pervades
things when conversation has petered out and the dinner-bell is expected
to ring. Smith screwed his face and squeezed a pimple on his throat;
Steelman absently counted the flies on the wall. Presently Steelman,
with a yawning sigh, lay back on the pillow with his hands clasped under
his head.

"Better take a few quid, Smith, and get that suit you were looking
at the other day. Get a couple of shirts and collars, and some socks;
better get a hat while you're at it--yours is a disgrace to your
benefactor. And, I say, go to a chemist and get some cough stuff for
that churchyarder of yours--we've got no use for it just now, and it
makes me sentimental. I'll give you a cough when you want one. Bring me
a syphon of soda, some fruit, and a tract."

"A what?"

"A tract. Go on. Start your boots."

While Smith was gone, Steelman paced the room with a strange, worried,
haunted expression. He divided the gold that was left--(Smith had taken
four pounds)--and put ten sovereigns in a pile on the extreme corner
of the table. Then he walked up and down, up and down the room, arms
tightly folded, and forehead knitted painfully, pausing abruptly now
and then by the table to stare at the gold, until he heard Smith's step.
Then his face cleared; he sat down and counted flies.

Smith was undoing and inspecting the parcels, having placed the syphon
and fruit on the table. Behind his back Steelman hurriedly opened a
leather pocketbook and glanced at the portrait of a woman and child and
at the date of a post-office order receipt.

"Smith," said Steelman, "we're two honest, ignorant, green coves;
hard-working chaps from the bush."

"Yes."

"It doesn't matter whether we are or not--we are as far as the world
is concerned. Now we've grafted like bullocks, in heat and wet, for six
months, and made a hundred and fifty, and come down to have a bit of a
holiday before going back to bullock for another six months or a year.
Isn't that so, Smith?"

"Yes."

"You could take your oath on it?"

"Yes."

"Well, it doesn't matter if it is so or not--it IS so, so far as the
world is concerned. N