“You don’t really mean that?” she said.
“He does, anyhow. I just met him in his dog-cart and he’s mad about his flood-losses. ‘You should have paid a good man,’ I told the hunks to his head.”
“Oh, but, Will,” she said, shrinking, “you don’t like Farmer Gale!”
“Well, he’s safely married now, and after all, my father had the place first. . . . It belongs to the family. . . . Anyhow,” he broke off masterfully, “I’d pay my wife’s passage-money.”
“Then I’ll be able to buy Methusalem,” she said in cheerful submission. “He’s only five pounds—I suppose your father would take care of him.”
“Rather! It would be a refuge from the New Jerusalem.”
“But we’ll take Nip with us, sweetheart—it won’t be the goldfields, you know, just a farm. And we can take over the Bidlake girls too, if you like.”
“Lord, what a crowd! But I don’t see Nip on an emigrant ship.”
“Haven’t I heard of dog-watches?” she smiled.
“I guess you’d smuggle him in somehow,” he laughed. “I’ve noticed you generally get your own way. And captains are but men.”