, and as I was passing I thought I'd call
and get your head."

"What?"

"I come for your skull.

"Yes," the phrenologist continued, while Malachi sat horror-stricken;
"I've got Jimmy Nowlett's skull here," and he lifted the bag and
lovingly felt the pumpkin--it must have weighed forty pounds. "I spoilt
one of his best bumps with the tomahawk. I had to hit him twice,
but it's no use crying over spilt milk." Here he drew a heavy
shingling-hammer out of the bag and wiped off with his sleeve something
that looked like blood. Malachi had been edging round for the door, and
now he made a rush for it. But the skull-fancier was there before him.

"Gor-sake you don't want to murder me!" gasped Malachi.

"Not if I can get your skull any other way," said Bricky.

"Oh!" gasped Malachi--and then, with a vague idea that it was best
to humour a lunatic, he continued, in a tone meant to be off-hand and
careless--"Now, look here, if yer only waits till I die you can have my
whole skelington and welcome."

"Now Malachi," said the phrenologist sternly, "d'ye think I'm a fool? I
ain't going to stand any humbug. If yer acts sensible you'll be quiet,
and it'll soon be over, but if yer---"

Malachi did not wait to hear the rest. He made a spring for the back of
the hut and through it, taking down a large new sheet of stringy-bark in
his flight. Then he could be heard loudly ejaculating "It's a caution!"
as he went through the bush like a startled kangaroo, and he didn't stop
till he reached the station.

Jimmy Nowlett and I had been peeping through a crack in the same sheet
of bark that Malachi dislodged; it fell on us and bruised us somewhat,
but it wasn't enough to knock the fun out of the thing.

When Jimmy Nowlett crawled out from under the bark he had to lie down
on Malachi's bunk to laugh, and even for some time afterwards it was not
unusual for Jimmy to wake up in the' night and laugh till we wished him
dead.

I should like to finish here, but there remains something more to be
said about Malachi.

One of the best cows at the homestead had a calf, about which she made
a great deal of fuss. She was ordinarily a quiet, docile creature, and,
though somewhat fussy after calving no one ever dreamed that she would
injure anyone. It happened one day that the squatter's daughter and her
intended husband, a Sydney exquisite, were strolling in a paddock where
the cow was. Whether the cow objected to the masher or his lady love's