“Never mind. Let me finish the yarn. Bobbie was married; but she wouldn’t let him out of her sight all that afternoon, and he had to put up with her before them all. About bedtime he sneaked out and started along the passage to his room that he shared with two or three mates. But she’d her eye on him.
“‘Bobbie, Bobbie!’ she says, ‘Where are you going?’
“‘I’m going to bed,’ said Bobbie. ‘Good night!’
“‘Bobbie, Bobbie,’ she says, sharply. ‘That isn’t our room; this is our room, Bobbie. Come back at once! What do you mean, Bobbie? Do you hear me, Bobbie?’
“So Bobbie came back, and went in with the scarecrow. Next morning she was first at the breakfast table, in a dressing-gown and curl papers. And when they were all sitting down Bobbie sneaked in, looking awfully sheepish, and sidled for his chair at the other end of the table. But she’d her eyes on him.
“‘Bobbie, Bobbie!’ she said, ‘Come and kiss me, Bobbie!’” And he had to do it in front of them all.
“But I believe she made him a good wife.”
HIS COUNTRY-AFTER ALL
The Blenheim coach was descending into the valley of the Avetere River—pronounced Aveterry—from the saddle of Taylor’s Pass. Across the river to the right, the grey slopes and flats stretched away to the distant sea from a range of tussock hills. There was no native bush there; but there were several groves of imported timber standing wide apart—-sentinel-like—seeming lonely and striking in their isolation.
“Grand country, New Zealand, eh?” said a stout man with a brown face, grey beard, and grey eyes, who sat between the driver and another passenger on the box.