"That was when a carriage with two white horses came through the street, and stopped in it for full five minutes. It was the first carriage that ever was seen here, and the last, for that matter. You remember, mother!
"Yes, George."
"I wish you could have stopped with us until the last minute, Josh," continued George Marvel; "but Mr. Meddler was so mightily anxious that you should spend tonight and to-morrow with him at Gravesend, that he couldn't well be refused, being so good a friend. Do you think your ship will sail to-morrow?"
"To-morrow or next day, daddy." And Joshua put his arm round his mother's neck, and she looked up at her big son with affectionate pride.
"In three or four months you'll be among the savages again," observed George Marvel contemplatively and admiringly.
"I shall see plenty of them, I dare say, father. They come down to Sydney from what the people call the interior."
"And they are black all over, eh, Josh?" asked George Marvel, who was never tired of a repetition of Joshua's adventures.
"A kind of brown-black rather," answered Joshua, "with eyes like pieces of lighted coal."
"And not a bit of clothing?"
"An old blanket, some of them; nothing at all, a good many. A sailor gave one a pair of trousers, and the fellow tied them round his neck by the legs."