it, and he
always carried away a deep impression of the Inspector's qualities.

"Had his day," said Dicky in O'Fallen's sitting-room one night, "in
marble halls, or I'm a Jack. Run neck and neck with almighty swells
once. Might live here for a thousand years and he'd still be the
nonesuch of the back-blocks. I'd patent him--file my caveat for him
to-morrow, if I could, bully Old Roses!"

Victoria Lindley, the barmaid, lifted her chin slightly from her hands,
as she leaned through the opening between the bar and the sitting-room,
and said: "Mr. Merritt, Old Roses is a gentleman; and a gentleman is a
gentleman till he--"

"Till he humps his bluey into the Never Never Land, Vic? But what do
you know about gentlemen, anyway? You were born only five miles from the
jumping-off place, my dear."

"Oh," was the quiet reply, "a woman--the commonest woman--knows a
gentleman by instinct. It isn't what they do, it's what they don't do;
and Old Roses doesn't do lots of things."

"Right you are, Victoria, right you are again! You do Tibbooburra
credit. Old Roses has the root of the matter in him--and there you have
it."

Dicky had a profound admiration for Vic. She had brains, was perfectly
fearless, no man had ever taken a liberty with her, and every one in the
Wadgery country who visited O'Fallen's had a wholesome respect for her
opinion.

About this time news came that the Governor, Lord Malice, would pass
through Wadgery on his tour up the back-blocks. A great function was
necessary. It was arranged. Then came the question of the address of
welcome to be delivered at the banquet. Dicky Merritt and the local
doctor were named for the task, but they both declared they'd only "make
rot of it," and suggested Old Roses.

They went to lay the thing before him. They found him in his garden. He
greeted them, smiling in his quiet, enigmatical way, and listened. While
Dicky spoke, a flush slowly passed over him, and then immediately left
him pale; but he stood perfectly still, his hand leaning against a
sandal tree, and the coldness of his face warmed up again slowly. His
head having been bent attentively as he listened, they did not see
anything unusual.

After a moment of inscrutable deliberation, he answered that he would
do as they wished. Dicky hinted that he would require some information
about Lord Malice's past career and his family's history, but he assured
them that he did not need it; and his eyes idled ironically wit