ing in
town half a week at a stretch, and being hail-fellow to all the spongers
to be found on the trail of such as he, quickly left him on the verge of
bankruptcy. Some of his contemporaries say it was grog that did it all.

Had he kept clear-headed he was a smart fellow, and gave promise of doing
well, but his head would not stand alcohol, and by it he was undermined
in no time. In considerably less than a twelvemonth all the spare capital
in his coffers from the disposal of Bruggabrong and the Bin Bins had been
squandered. He had become so hard up that to pay the drovers in his last
venture he was forced to sell the calves of the few milch-cows retained
for household uses.

At this time it came to my father's knowledge that one of our bishops had
money held in trust for the Church. On good security he was giving this
out for usury, the same as condemned in the big Bible, out of which he
took the text of the dry-hash sermons with which he bored his fashionable
congregations in his cathedral on Sundays.

Father took advantage of this Reverend's inconsistency and mortgaged
Possum Gully. With the money thus obtained he started once more and
managed to make a scant livelihood and pay the interest on the bishop's
loan. In four or five years he had again reached loggerheads. The price
of stock had fallen so that there was nothing to be made out of dealing
in them.

Richard Melvyn resolved to live as those around him--start a dairy; run it
with his family, who would also rear poultry for sale.

As instruments of the dairying trade he procured fifty milch-cows, the
calves of which had to be "poddied", and a hand cream-separator.

I was in my fifteenth year when we began dairying; the twins Horace and
Gertie were, as you already know, eleven months younger. Horace, had
there been any one to train him, contained the makings of a splendid man;
but having no one to bring him up in the way he should go, he was a
churlish and trying bully, and the issue of his character doubtful.

Gertie milked thirteen cows, and I eighteen, morning and evening. Horace
and mother, between them, milked the remaining seventeen.

Among the dairying fraternity little toddlers, ere they are big enough to
hold a bucket, learn to milk. Thus their hands become inured to the
motion, and it does not affect them. With us it was different. Being
almost full grown when we started to milk, and then plunging heavily into
the exercise, it had a painful eff