ough to get rid of time, rather than to
enlarge the stack of short sticks, were the most imperative object.
Driving his axe in tight and holding on to it as a sort of balance, he
leant back, effected a passage in his nostrils, and after having
regarded me with a leisurely and straightforward squint, observed--

"I reckon you're the new boarder?"

"I reckon so. I reckon you belong to this place."

"Yes, Mrs. Clay, she's my grandma."

"Is that your grandfather?" I inquired, pointing to the old man who
had travelled with me on the day of my first visit to the town, and
now supporting an outhouse door-post, while a young man with whom he
talked leant against the tailboard of a cart advertising that he was
the first-class butcher of Kangaroo, and had several other
unsurpassable virtues in the meat trade.

"No, he ain't me grandfather, thank goodness he's only me uncle;
that's plenty for me."

"Aren't you fond of him?"

"I ain't _dying_ of love for him, I promise you. Old Crawler! He
reckons he's the boss, but sometimes I get home on him in a way that a
sort of illustrates to his intelligence that he ain't. Ask Dawn. She's
the one'll give you the straight tip regarding him."

"Where is Dawn?"

"Oh, Dawn's in the kitchen. She an' Carry does the cookin' week about
w'en the house ain't full. Grandma makes 'em do that; it saves rows
about it not bein' fair. You won't ketch sight of Dawn till dinner.
She'll want to get herself up a bit, you bein' new; she always does
for a fresh person, but she soon gets tired of it."

"And you, are you going to get yourself up because I'm new?"

"Not much; boys ain't that way so much as the wimmin," he said, and
the grin we exchanged was the germ of a friendship that ripened as our
acquaintance progressed. I intended to settle down to the enjoyment
afforded by my sense of humour. I had preserved it intact as a private
personal accomplishment. On the stage, having steered clear of comedy
and confined myself to tragedy, it had never been cheapened and made
nauseous by sham and machine representations indigenous to the hated
footlights, and was an untapped preserve to be drawn upon now.

So I was not to see Dawn till the midday dinner; she was to appear
last, like the star at a concert.

A star she verily was when eventually she came before me carrying a
well-baked roast on an old-fashioned dish. Her lovely face was scarlet
from hurry and the fire, her bright hair gleamed in coquetti