"It ain't his name. He's called it for a lark because he was after a
girl up in town named Dora Cowper. She serves in a hay and corn store
at the corner. Things were gettin' on pretty strong, and he used to be
taking her out all hours of the night and day. Some reckon she's
better-lookin' than Dawn, and her mother put it around that Eweword
would make a brilliant match for her, and that shooed him off at once.
I reckon if I was a girl and wanted to ketch a man I'd hold me mag
about it, as I know two or three now has been turned off the same
way."

"Perhaps Dora Cowper didn't lose much."

"Well, he has a bosker farm, you see. He keeps a power of pigs and
fattens 'em. Then he went after one or two more girls, and now he
comes here. Buying these pumpkins is only a dodge to get a chip in
with Dawn. He has plenty lucerne for his pigs, but we have so many
pumpkins rotting we are glad to get rid of them at two bob a load, and
I suppose that is cheap to get a yarn with Dawn. He ain't preposed to
Dawn yet, but I'm sure he's goin' to, because I asked him if he was
goin' to marry Dora Cowper, an' he said no. Dawn is only pullin' his
leg for him--she's got all the blokes on a string. You should see her
with those that comes up in the summer. It's worth bein' alive in the
summer. We had melons here in millions. We used to open a big Dixie or
Cuban Queen and just only claw out the middle. We used to fill the
water-cask with 'em to cool, an' every time Dawn came out to dive in
her dipper, wouldn't she rouse! Me an' Uncle Jake used to race to see
who could eat the most, but he beat. He's a sollicker to stuff when he
gets anything he likes. It's a wonder we didn't bust. The oranges will
soon be ripe, that's good luck: I can eat eighty a-day easy. Here
comes old Bolliver!"

A huge figure as described by Dawn came out of the house in company
with Miss Flipp, and I recognised Mr Pornsch, the heavy swell who had
travelled in the 'bus with me on the day of my first arrival in
Noonoon.

With repulsive clumsiness he climbed into the vehicle, and then said
roughly, almost brutally, to his niece--

"Get in! get in!" and scarcely gave her time to be seated ere he hit
the pony and nearly screwed its jaw off getting out of the yard.

"Cock-a-doodle-do! Ain't it nice to have a sweet temper," loudly
remarked Andrew, as he stood aside. "He just is a purple plum. He's
the kind of old cove I'd like to get real narked and then scoot.
Wouldn't h