come a matter of history, if you were to ask him what he thought of
Sydney the dazed expression would come back into his face, and he would
scratch his head and say in a slow and deliberate manner, "Well, there's
no mistake, it's a caution." And as such the city remained, so far as
Malachi's opinion of it was concerned.

Malachi was always shabbily dressed, in spite of his pound a week and
board, and "When Malachi gets a new suit of clothes" was the expression
invariably used by the boys to fix a date for some altogether improbable
event. We were always having larks with Malachi, for we looked upon
him as our legitimate butt. He seldom complained, and when he did his
remonstrance hardly ever went beyond repeating the words, "Now, none of
your pranktical jokes!" If this had not the desired effect, and we
put up some too outrageous trick on him, he would content himself by
muttering with sorrowful conviction, "Well, there's no mistake, it's a
caution."

We were not content with common jokes, such as sewing up the legs
of Malachi's trousers while he slept, fixing his bunk, or putting
explosives in his pipe--we aspired to some of the higher branches of
the practical joker's art. It was well known that Malachi had an undying
hatred for words of four syllables and over, and the use of them was
always sufficient to forfeit any good opinions he might have previously
entertained concerning the user. "I hate them high-flown words," he
would say--"I got a book at home that I could get them out of if I
wanted them; but I don't." The book referred to was a very dilapidated
dictionary. Malachi's hatred for high-flown words was only equalled
by his aversion to the opposite sex; and, this being known, we used to
write letters to him in a feminine hand, threatening divers breach of
promise actions, and composed in the high-flown language above alluded
to. We used to think this very funny, and by these means we made his
life a burden to him. Malachi put the most implicit faith in everything
we told him; he would take in the most improbable yarn provided we
preserved a grave demeanour and used no high-flown expressions. He would
indeed sometimes remark that our yarns were a caution, but that was all.

We played upon him the most gigantic joke of all during the visit of a
certain bricklayer, who came to do some work at the homestead. "Bricky"
was a bit of a phrenologist, and knew enough of physiognomy and human
nature to give a pretty fa