"I told him you would give him a good hiding. He said he had 640 acres of land, two houses in Melbourne, an' money in the bank. He offered to give me all if I would marry him."
"The hound!" said Alec; "he hasn't 640 pence to bless himself with. He's the greatest bragger in Australia. When the boss took him on he had hardly a shirt to his back. He hadn't been a week on the station when he made out as how he was a nobleman's son in disguise, an' that his uncle had left him a stack of money, but he wouldn't take it yet, as he wanted to get Colonial experience."
"It's my opinion," said Annie, "that he left the shirt you speak of with his uncle, to raise the wind which blew him up here. It's all blow with him!"
"Blowed if I can make him out," said Alec. "Last week he said he had found a gold-mine. Yesterday he bragged he had discovered diamonds. The more a man brags the less in his bags. The less a man knows the more he blows."
"That basin is about full of honey, Alec. Reach down another, an' put it under the bag while I take the full one away. So, that will do."
Alec seated himself on a chair, as far from the fire as he could, and mopped his brow with a whitey-brown handkerchief. The heat of the kitchen was stifling. It was hot enough outside; here it was almost unbearable. Annie was as cool as a cucumber. She was accustomed to a roaring fire, even when the thermometer stood at a hundred degrees in the shade.
A fit of silence came over Alec. He knitted his brows, and looked thoughtful. Jealousy was creeping into his heart, although he did all he could to shut it out. There it was, however, and had taken possession.
Annie took a wicked delight in his misery. She saw what was the matter with him.
"Lanky Tim said I was as sweet as honey."