Dr. Crips set in at Tarra, but by this time Nickie the Kid was back in
town, amazing his friends with his lavish hospitality in threepenny bars.

CHAPTER II.

A FAMILY MATTER.

EVEN Nickie's intimates of the wharves and the river banks knew nothing
of his ancestors or relations. Nickie was naturally reticent about his
own business; On the point of family connections he was dumb. It was
assumed that he had had a father and mother at some stage of his career,
but the evolution of Nickie the Kid from a schoolboy, with shining
morning face, to a homeless rapscallion, living on his impudence, was
never dwelt upon by our hero, which is a great pity, as the process of
degeneration must have been highly interesting.

Certainly, Nickie did not regret his respectable past, if he were ever
respectable, and it is equally certain that he had no craving for high
things in the way of tall hats and two-storey houses. He appreciated the
value of money, since it enabled him to gratify his tastes, but it must
be admitted his tastes were scandalous in the main.

However, at Banklands Nickie solicited work, laborious and painful work.
Moreover, he went to the job of his own free will, when sober and in his
right mind. This seemed to imply an awakening of conscience, a dawning
sense of his utter uselessness to the body politic, and a desire to
figure as a useful member of society. On the other hand, it may have been
a symptom of brain-softening. But it happened to be neither; it was in
fact a means to a wicked end. On the fading end of a superior suburb,
where the streets of fine villas and mansions thinned off and dwindled,
and were lost among the gum trees of the original wilderness, Nickie
found his billet.

The suburb was coming ahead. The motor-car had made it easy and
accessible to the rich. Splendid dwellings were going up all over the
place, the road makers were exceedingly busy, and hammers of the
stone-knappers rattled an incessant fusillade.

Nickie the Kid came to Banklands one pleasant summer day, watched the
busy people with a desultory sort of interest, and moralised within
himself.

"Do these people expect to live a thousand years?" mused Mr. Crips, "that
they build such solid houses? Or do they regard them as monuments? Look
at that palace, and I sleep well on a potato sack under four boards!"

Nickie was examining a fine, white house, ornate as a wedding cake, with
plentiful cement, and balconies as frivolou