"You may say that. It has been a case of battledore and shuttlecock--the battledore a stone one and the shuttlecock a poor bit of ironbark, with such a mockery of feathers in it that the moment it was knocked up it fell down like a lump of lead. If I puzzle you, Master Basil, you puzzle me. There is something in you I can't exactly read. Your clothes are not what I should like to see you wear, though they are the clothes of a prince compared with mine. This room is the room of a man pretty low down in the world," and here Old Corrie added with a laugh, "the higher up you live the lower down you are--and yet you have the air of a man who is not hard up."
"Regarding me," said Basil, "as a bundle of contradictions, you are nearer the mark than you could suppose yourself to be. But surely I am forgetting my manners and my duties as a host." He opened a cupboard, and drew therefrom bread, butter, cheese, and a bottle of ale, which he uncorked. Plates, glasses, and knives were on the table in a trice. "Fall to, Corrie."
"You can spare it, Master Basil?"
"I can spare it, Corrie. You share with me from this time forth. Do you live near here?"
"Very near," replied Old Corrie, pointing to the window. "The sky is my roof."
"It has been mine. We'll house you better. I drink love and friendship to a dear old friend." They clinked glasses, and Corrie ate like a famished man. The meal being done he said: "I've been on my beam-ends in Australia, but starving in this country is a very different pair of shoes. It's a near thing here between want and death--so near that they touch often and join hands in grim partnership. I've seen it done, and a dead woman before me. Now, in Australia, unless it comes to being lost in a bush--where it's no man's fault but the explorer's--I never heard of a case. There's stone-breaking at all events to tide over the evil day. I've had more than one turn at it, and been thankful to get it to do, as every honest and willing man would be. Different in England, Master Basil, where they've brought civilization down to a fine point. Did you take notice how I ate my supper? More like a wild beast than a man--and now, with a full stomach, I am thoroughly ashamed of myself. Not that I am loth to accept your hospitality; it's the need of it that riles me. That's where the shoe really pinches."
"I can sympathise with you, Corrie. By the way, I am in your debt."
"How so, Master Basil?"
"Over the water yonder, I borrowed a mare of you, and managed to lose it. You remember. I wanted to get from Bidaud's plantation to Gum Flat Township--a gruesome journey it turned out to be--and you lent me your mare. When I returned and reported the matter to you my pockets were empty, and not a word of reproach did you fling at me. I couldn't pay the debt then--I can now."
"Hold hard a bit, Master Basil; let me turn the thing over in my mind." Basil humoured him, and there was a brief silence. Then Corrie said, "It is a simple justice that the mare should be paid for if you can afford it."