“Never heard tell of him,” said John William, making spectacles of his burnished bores, and looking through them into the sunlight. Already he had lost interest.
Mr. Teesdale was also occupied, having taken from his pocket a very large red cotton handkerchief, with which he was wiping alternately the dust from his tall hat and the perspiration from the forehead whereon the hat had left a fiery rim. Now, however, he nodded his bald head and clicked his lips, as one who gives another up.
“Well, well! Never heard tell of him—you who've heard me tell of him time out o' mind! Nay, come; why, you're called after him yourself! Ay, we called you after John William Oliver because he was the best friend that ever we had in old Yorkshire or anywhere else; the very best; and you pretend you've never heard tell of him.”
“What had he got to say for himself?” said Mr. Oliver's namesake, with a final examination of the outside of his barrels.
“Plenty; he's sent one of his daughters out in the Parramatta, that got in with the mail yesterday afternoon; and of course he had given her an introduction to me.”
“What's that?” exclaimed John William, looking up sharply, as he ran over the words in his ear. “I say, father, we don't want her here,” he added earnestly.
“Oh, did you find out where she was? Have you seen her? What is she like?” cried Arabella, jumping up from the table and joining the others with a face full of questions. She had that instant finished her chapter.
“I don't know what she's like; I didn't see her; I couldn't even find out where she was, though I tried at half a dozen hotels and both coffee-palaces,” said the farmer with a crestfallen air.
“All the better!” cried John William, grounding his gun with a bang. “We don't want none of your stuck-up new chums or chumesses here, father.”
“I don't know that; for my part, I should love to have a chance of talking to an English young lady,” Arabella said, with a backward glance at her Family Cherub. “They're very rich, the Olivers,” she added for her brother's benefit; “that's their house in the gilt frame in the best parlour, the house with the tower; and the group in the frame to match, that is the Olivers, isn't it, father?”