The old man pushed the spirit-casket across the table.
'You look as if you've got a chill,' he said; 'take a nip.'
The son poured himself a finger's depth, and drank it off, his father watching him from under his shaggy eyebrows.
'Did Luke or Jack come up this afternoon?' asked Mortimer.
'Jack and his wife,' said the old man. 'Luke went to Sydney yesterday, Jack says, to watch the sales himself.'
'Take Bertha with him?'
'I rather think the young woman took him. Don't believe she's the wife for any squatter; Macquarie Street's the only run she'll ever settle on, with the theatres and dancing halls within cooey.'
'Oh, well,' sighed Mortimer, 'Luke can afford it, and he seems happy enough. Anything fresh about the war? You seem to have all the papers there.'
The old man's eyes gleamed, his hand trembled as he reached for an evening paper, and opened it.
'See here,' he said, 'Buller's made a fatal mistake, a fatal mistake. He's advancing on Ladysmith by this route, wheeling here and doubling there, and having a brush or two on the way. Now, what he ought to have done is plainly to have gone along by night marches up here, and taken up a strong position here. See, I've marked the way he ought to have gone with those red dots. You don't look as if you agree.'