re making a fortune hand over
fist, you and Jimmy Ah San."

"We are certainly making a lot of money, Mallard," replied Grainger
quietly, as he lit his pipe and crossed his strong, sun-tanned hands
over his knee. "My own whack, so far, out of Chinkie's Flat, has come to
more than L16,000."

"Don't say 'whack,' Grainger; it's vulgar. Say 'My own emolument,
derived in less than one year from the auriferous wealth of Chinkie's
Flat, amounts to L16,000.' You'll be going to London soon, and floating
the property for a million, and--"

Grainger, who knew the man well, and had a sincere liking and respect
for him, laughed again, though his face flushed. "You know me better
than that, Mallard; I'm not the man to do that sort of thing. I could
float the concern and make perhaps a hundred thousand or so out of it
if I was blackguard enough to do it. But, thank God, I've never done
anything dirty in my life, and never will."

"Don't mind my idiotic attempt at a joke, Grainger," and Mallard pat ont
his hand. "I know you are the straightest man that ever lived. But I did
really think that you would be going off to England soon, and that
we--I mean the other real friends beside myself you have made in this
God-forsaken colony--would know you no more except by reading of your
'movements' in London."

"No, Mallard, Australia is my home. I know nothing of England, for I
left there when I was a child. As I told you, my poor father was one
of the biggest sheep men in Victoria, and died soon after the bank
foreclosed on him. The old station, which he named 'Melinda Downs,'
after my mother, who has the good old-fashioned name of Melinda, has
gone through a lot of vicissitudes since then; but a few weeks ago my
agent in Sydney bought it for L10,000, and now my mother and sisters are
going back there."

"And yourself?"

"Oh, a year or two more--perhaps three or four; and then, when Chinkie's
Flat is worked out, I too, will go south to the old home."

Mallard sighed, and then, taking a cigar, lit it, and the two men smoked
together in silence for a few minutes.

"Mallard!"

"Yes, old man."

"This continual newspaper grind is pretty tough, isn't it?"

"Yes, it is. But thanks to you--by putting me on to the 'Day Dawn' Reef
at Chinkie's Flat--I've made a thousand or two and can chuck it at any
time."

"Don't say 'chuck.' It's vulgar; and the editor of the 'leading journal
in North Queensland' must not be vulgar," and he smiled.