al night.
The great, richly furnished drawing-room was brilliantly lighted, and the
magnificent Erard grand piano sang and rang again with music, now martial
and loud, now soft and solemn, now gay and sparkling. I made the very
pleasant discovery that Harold Beecham. was an excellent pianist, a
gifted player on the violin, and sang with a strong, clear, well-trained
tenor, which penetrated far into the night. How many, many times I have
lived those nights over again! The great room with its rich appointments,
the superb piano, the lights, the merriment, the breeze from the east,
rich with the heavy intoxicating perfume of countless flowers; the tall
perfect figure, holding the violin with a master hand, making it speak
the same language as I read in the dark eyes of the musician, while above
and around was the soft warmth of an Australian summer night.

Ah, health and wealth, happiness and youth, joy and light, life and love!
What a warm-hearted place is the world, how full of pleasure, good, and
beauty, when fortune smiles! _When fortune smiles!_

Fortune did smile, and broadly, in those days. We played tricks on one
another, and had a deal of innocent fun and frolic. I was a little
startled one night on retiring to find a huge goanna near the head of my
bed. I called Harold to dislodge the creature, when it came to light that
it was roped to the bedpost. Great was the laughter at my expense. Who
tethered the goanna I never discovered, but I suspected Harold. In return
for this joke, I collected all the portable docks in the house--about
twenty--and arrayed them on his bedroom table. The majority of them were
Waterburys for common use, so I set each alarm for a different hour.
Inscribing a placard "Hospital for Insane", I erected it above his door.
Next morning I was awakened at three o'clock by fifteen alarms in concert
outside my door. When an hour or two later I emerged I found a notice on
my door, "This way to the Zoo".

It was a very busy time for the men at Five-Bob. Waggons were arriving
with &hearing supplies, for it was drawing nigh unto the great event of
the year. In another week's time the bleat of thousands of sheep, and the
incense of much tar and wool, would be ascending to the heavens from the
vicinity of Five-Bob Downs. I was looking forward to the shearing. There
never was any at Caddagat. Uncle did not keep many sheep, and always sold
them long-woolled and rebought after shearing.

I had not m