?"

At this juncture I opened my eyes, so he cheerfully remarked, in a
strong twang known by some supercilious English as the "beastly
colonial accent"--

"So you didn't peg out after all!"

This being the language applied to stock, confirmed me in the notion
that he was a veterinary. I had once before heard it applied to a
human being in a far bush place, where a man who lived unhappily with
his wife one morning remarked to a neighbour that "The missus nearly
pegged out last night," and it was considered a fitting remark for
such a monster as this man was supposed to have been, but this doctor
said it quite naturally.

I found him a friendly and communicative fellow, and as he gave in an
hour's gossip with grandma and me for one fee, I was willing to take
it to pass away a dull morning.

"What on earth did you go rowing for?" he asked me.

"The roads are too bad to go walking."

"That's only within range of the municipality. The council wants
bursting up. They can't do anything with everything mortgaged to old
Dr Tinker. He holds the whole thing. It's a pity he wouldn't peg out
one of these nights, and we might get something done. But it's not him
who has the money--it's the old woman."

"That's her Mrs Bray was tellin' us walloped the girl for bein'
admired by the old doctor," explained grandma.

"Money, that's what he married her for," continued the doctor. "I
don't know where he could have picked her up. Some say she is a
publican's widow, but Jackson, the solicitor here, has a different
hypothesis. He says he's seen her running along carrying five cups and
saucers of tea at once, and no one but a ship's waitress could do
that. At any rate she's a great man of a woman; can swear like a
trooper if things don't go right. She's got the old man completely
cowed."

"Am I to infer that cowing her spouse and swearing outrageously makes
her _man_-like?" I laconically inquired. But the doctor's
understanding didn't seem to go in for small satirical detail, he
conversed on a more wholesale fashion, rattling on for a good
half-hour to a patient for whom quietude was necessary, lest she
should "peg out."

"Ain't he a bosker?" enthusiastically commented Andrew, coming in to
see what I had thought of this doctor, who was the idol of Noonoon.

"Has he a large practice?" I cautiously inquired, seeking to discover
was he really a doctor.

"My word! Nearly all the people go to him, he's so friendly and don't
stick