"Sunburnt face? Skulking, fugitive appearance generally?"
"Your description's wonderfully correct, Mr. Q——. You might, without libel, call him a sansculotte."
"I'm seldom far out in these matters. How was he dressed?"
"In a little brief authority, so far as I remember But is my dog——"
"Do you imply a sarcasm?" inquired the J,P. darkly. "I would n't do so if I was you. I'm not thinking about your dog. You and your dog! I'm thinking about a valuable stack of hay I had burnt this morning; and you've give me a clue to the incendiary." He paused, to let his words filter in. "You done it without your knowledge, Mr. O'Connell," he continued pompously, again holding up his glass to the light.
In the silence that ensued, I could hear the murmur of the girls' voices about the house, and the irregular ticking of two clocks; while there dawned on my mind an impression that somebody had fallen in the fat.
"I'm sorry to hear of your loss, Mr. Q——," I remarked, at length.
"So far as the loss goes, that gives me no inconvenience, though it might break a poorer man. I been burnt out, r——p and stump, by an incendiary, when I was at Ballarat"——
"Ah!" said I sympathetically, but my sympathy was with the other party——
"And then I could afford to offer a hundred notes for the apprehension of the offender, before the ashes was cold."