"How d'ye do, Miss Lawton?" said he getting off the stall and shaking hands warmly. "It's quite an age since I saw you. You're looking as well as ever." Ned saw that his thin face beamed as he spoke and that his dark brown eyes, though somewhat hectic, wore singularly beautiful.
"I'm well, thanks," said Nellie, beaming in return. "And how are you? You seem browner than you did. What have you been doing to yourself?"
"Me! I've been up the country a piece trying my hand at farming. Jones is taking up a selection, you know, and I've been helping him a little now times aren't very brisk. I'm keeping fairly well, very fairly, I'm glad to say."
"This is Mr. Hawkins, Mr. Sim," introduced Nellie; the men shook hands.
"Come inside out of the rush," invited Sim, making room for them in the entrance-way of the stall. "We haven't got any armchairs, but it's not so bad up on the table here if you're tired."
"I'm not tired," said Nellie, leaning against the doorway. Ned sat up on the stall by her side; his feet were sore, unused to the hard paved city streets.
"I suppose Mr. Hawkins is one of us," said Sim, perching himself up again.
"I don't know what you call 'one of us,'" answered Nellie, with a smile. "He's a beginner. Some day he may get as far as you and Jones and the rest of the dynamiters."
Sim laughed genially. "Do you know, I really believe that Jones would use dynamite if he got an opportunity," he commented. "I'm not joking. I'm positively convinced of it."
"Has he got it as bad as that?" asked Nellie. Ned began to feel interested. He also noticed that Sim used book-words.