ischievously at me. He was a young man--a very young
man, a bushman tremendously tall and big and sunburnt, with an open
pleasant face and chestnut moustache--not at all an awe-inspiring fellow,
in spite of his unusual, though well-proportioned and carried, height. I
knew it must be Harold Beecham, of Five-Bob Downs, as I had heard he
stood six feet three and a half in his socks.

I hurriedly let down my dress, the lemons rolling in a dozen directions,
and turned to flee, but that well-formed figure bounded before me with
the agility of a cat and barred my way.

"Now, not a step do you go, my fine young blood, until you pick up every
jolly lemon and put them away tidily, or I'll tell the missus on you as
sure as eggs."

It dawned on me that he had mistaken me for one of the servant-girls. That
wasn't bad fun. I determined not to undeceive but to have a lark with him.
I summed him up as conceited, but not with the disgusting conceit with
which some are afflicted, or perhaps blessed. It was rather an air of
I-have-always-got-what-I-desire-and-believe,-if-people-fail-it-is-all-
their-own-fault, which surrounded him.

"If you please, sir," I said humbly, "I've gathered them all up, will you
let me go now."

"Yes, when you've given me a kiss."

"Oh, sir, I couldn't do that!"

"Go on, I won't poison you. Come now, I'll make you."

"Oh, the missus might catch me."

"No jolly fear; I'll take all the blame if she does."

"Oh don't, sir; let me go, please," I said in such unfeigned distress,
for I feared he was going to execute his threat, that he laughed and
said:

"Don't be frightened, sissy, I never kiss girls, and I'm not going to
start at this time of day, and against their will to boot. You haven't
been long here, have you? I haven't seen you before. Stand out there till
I see if you've got any grit in you, and then I am done with you."

I stood in the middle of the yard, the spot he indicated, while he
uncurled his long heavy stock-whip with its big lash and scented myall
handle. He cracked it round and round my head and arms, but I did not
feel the least afraid, as I saw at a glance that he was exceedingly
dexterous in the bushman's art of handling a stock-whip, and knew, if I
kept perfectly still, I was quite safe. It was thanks to uncle Jay-Jay
that I was able to bear the operation with unruffled equanimity, as he
was in the habit of testing my nerves in this way.

"Well, I never! Not so much as blinked