An empty wood dray was going up the main street, Windsor, a young man seated on the side rail, carelessly resting after bringing in a second load of firewood from Pitt Town Common.
He was well-proportioned, muscular and hard with work, and black tanned by the sun.
Professor Norris, had he given an honest chart of this man’s character, would have found little for exultant rapture; and, on the other hand, little to condemn. A mind uncultivated, stunted by hard physical labour, he sat in his dray with a stolid, bovine content, for he had dined heartily on his midday meal of damper, corned beef, and a billy of black tea.
So he jolted on his road, as happy for the time being as a hungry cow in a lucerne paddock; but looking up his eye caught sight of a newly-pasted bill on a wall, and he pulled up his horse to read it. Seeing an acquaintance and old school-fellow close by, be hailed him—
“Hullo, Huey! what’s all this about on this bill? Mesmerism and clairvoyance! What sort of fake is that? Is there any circus in it, or horses?”
“No, Alec,” replied Huey; “it’s a man that feels your bumps and tells you, you are an awfully clever fellow, and a girl that reads you your fortune, and all kinds of things besides.”
“Oh, that sort of rot! I thought it might have been something worth seeing.”
“The show’s not up to much, but the girl’s a ripper—the prettiest girl in the world, I do believe! Straight wire, and no joke!”
“Is it worth a bob now, to go and see her?”
Little thinking how much hung on his answer, little knowing to how large a degree that answer would shape his own life and that of others, Huey answered—