“I think your father is right,” said Bob.
“I tell you, Bob, my boy, it isn’t father so much as mother. The dear old mummy speaks and breathes through every line and word of this epistle. Now I’m off to astonish Elsie and Roup. Come along, Bounder.”
Meanwhile Findlayson became a regular visitor at the farm.
“Why,” Archie said to him one evening, as he met him about the outer boundary of the farm, “why, Findlayson, my boy, you’re getting to be a regular ‘sundowner.’ Well, Miss Winslow has come, and Craig is with us, and as I want to show Branson a bit of real Australian sport, you had better stop with us a fortnight.”
“I’ll be delighted. I wish I’d brought my fiddle.”
“We’ll send for it if you can’t live without it.”
“Not very weel. But I’ve something to tell you.”
“Well, say on; but you needn’t dismount.”
“Yes, I’ll speak better down here.”
Findlayson sat up on top of the fence, and at once opened fire by telling Archie he had fallen in love with Elsie, and had determined to make her his wife. Archie certainly was taken aback.