I'd only been in the house once before in my life, and that was when old Merther had the place and kept it like a pig-sty. Now everything was changed, and I found myself in a room such as I had never in my life seen before. It was large and well-shaped, with dark panelled walls, had a big, old-fashioned fireplace at one end, in which half-a-dozen people could have seated themselves comfortably, and a long French window at the other, leading into the verandah, and thence into the tangled wilderness of front garden.

But it was not the shape or the size of the room that surprised me as much as the way in which it was furnished. Books there were, as in our rooms at home, and to be counted by the hundred, mixed up pell-mell with a collection of antique swords, quite a couple of dozen silver cups on brackets, pictures, a variety of fowling-pieces, rifles and pistols, a couple of suits of armour, looking very strange upon their carved pedestals, an easel draped with a curtain, a lot of what looked like valuable china, a heavy, carved table, two or three comfortable chairs, and last, but by no means least, a piano placed across one corner with a pile of music on the top. Though I had it all before me, I could hardly believe my eyes, for this was the last house in the township I should have expected to find furnished in such a fashion.

'Sit down,' said Pete, pointing to a large chair. 'Perhaps you will let me offer you some refreshment after your ride?'

It was a hot morning, and I was thirsty, so I gladly accepted his hospitality. Hearing this, he went to a quaint old cupboard on one side of the room and from it took a bottle with a gold cap—which I knew contained champagne. This was a luxury of which I had never partaken, for in the bush in those days we were very simple in our tastes, and I doubt if even the grog shanty itself had a bottle of this wine upon the premises, much less any other house in the township. Pete placed two strange-shaped glasses on the table, and then unscrewed the cork, not using a corkscrew as I should have done had I been in his place. The wine creamed and bubbled in the glasses, and, after handing one to me, my host took the other himself, and, bowing slightly, said, 'I drink to our better acquaintance, Mr Heggarstone.'

I knew I ought to say something polite in return, but for the life of me I could think of nothing, so I simply murmured, 'Thank you,' and drank off my wine at a gulp, an action which seemed to surprise him considerably. He said nothing, however, but poured me out another glassful, and then took a small silver case from his pocket which, when he offered it to me, I discovered contained cigarettes.

'Do try one,' he said. 'If you are a cigarette smoker, I think you will enjoy them. They are real Turkish, and as I have them made for myself I can guarantee their purity.'

I took one, lit it, and by the time it was half smoked felt more at my ease. The wine was having a tranquillising effect upon me, and the strings of my tongue were loosened. I even went so far as to comment upon his room.

'So glad you like it,' he murmured softly, with an intonation impossible to imitate. 'It's so difficult, as possibly you are aware, to make a room in any way artistic in these awful up-country townships—the material one has to work upon is, as a rule, so very, very crude. In this particular instance I can scarcely claim much credit, for this old room was originally picturesque, and all I had to do was to put my things in it, and give them a certain semblance of order.'

'And how do you manage to employ your time up here?' I asked.

He looked at me a little curiously for a moment and then said,—