there are none here to refuse. And if you don't mind my saying
so, Poll, anything in trousers seems fish to her net!"

On one of their pacings they found Mr. Ocock come out to smoke an
evening pipe. The old man had just returned from a flying visit to
Melbourne. He looked glum and careworn, but livened up at the sight of
Polly, and cracked one of the mouldy jokes he believed beneficial to a
young woman in her condition. Still, the leading-note in his mood was
melancholy; and this, although his dearest wish was on the point of
being fulfilled.

"Yes, I've got the very crib for 'Enry at last, doc., Billy de la
Poer's liv'ry-stable, top o' Lydiard Street. We sol' poor Billy up
yesterday. The third smash in two days that makes. Lord! I dunno where
it'll end."

"Things are going a bit quick over there. There's been too much
building."

"They're at me to build, too--'Enry is. But I says no. This place is
good enough for me. If 'e's goin' to be ashamed of 'ow 'is father
lives, 'e'd better stop away. I'm an ol' man now, an' a poor one. What
should I want with a fine noo 'ouse? An' 'oo should I build it for,
even if I 'ad the tin? For them two good-for-nothin's in there? Not if
I know it!"

"Mr. Ocock, you wouldn't believe how kind and clever Tom's been at
helping with the children," said Polly warmly.

"Yes, an' at bottle-washin' and sweepin' and cookin' a pasty. But a
female 'ud do it just as well," returned Tom's father with a snort of
contempt.

"Poor old chap!" said Mahony, as they passed out of earshot. "So even
the great Henry's arrival is not to be without its drop of gall."

"Surely he'll never be ashamed of his father?"

"Who knows! But it's plain he suspects the old boy has made his pile
and intends him to fork out," said Mahony carelessly; and, with this,
dismissed the subject. Now that his own days in the colony were
numbered, he no longer felt constrained to pump up a spurious interest
in local affairs. He consigned them wholesale to that limbo in which,
for him, they had always belonged.

The two brothers came striding over the slope. Ned, clad in blue serge
shirt and corduroys, laid an affectionate arm round Polly's shoulder,
and tossed his hat into the air on hearing that the "Salamander," as he
called Sarah, was not at home.

"For I've tons to tell you, Poll old girl. And when milady sits there
turning up her nose at everything a chap says, somehow the spunk goes
out of one."

Polly had baked a