"Yes," I replied mechanically. And then, avoiding the eye of the grand old saint, and hating myself as a buffoon, I continued, "My own conjecture is that something must have occurred to irritate the dramatist whilst he was writing that passage, and the expression slipped from his pen unawares."
"Never!" replied Stewart. "No man under the influence of petty irritation ever wrote anything like the passage where that expression occurs. Criticism is not your forte, Collins. The writer I'm speaking of sees a landscape photographed in those two words. Pardon me for saying that your talent seems to run more in the line of low-comedy acting. I don't like referring to it again, but d—n it all, my interest in you personally makes me feel very strongly over your interview with this Tom Armstrong."
"Indeed, Mr. Stewart, I can't tell you how sorry I am to have fallen in your estimation. But you were speaking of Alf Morris when I unfortunately drew you from the subject."
"Ay. To return to Morris. Do you know how he came to leave the Bland country, some five or six years ago?"
"Well, yes," I replied reluctantly; "rates are a lot higher here than there."
"Did you ever hear that he shot anyone? A boundary rider, for instance?"
"The kernel of truth in that report, Mr. Stewart, is that he spoke of a certain boundary rider as a man that deserved shooting."
"How do you know?"
"Well, in the first place, I'm only allowing for fair average growth in the report; and in the second place, when a person shoots a boundary man, he's not allowed to just change his district, and go his way in peace."
"Sometimes he is. I'll tell you how it happened with Morris." And the man who had a profanely long stage before him settled into an easy position, his heels on top of the splash-board, and his arms behind the back of the seat, whilst Bob held the reins. "It was on Mirrabooka. O'Grady Brothers had owned the place for a few years; but they were careless and intemperate, great lovers of racehorses, and d—d extravagant all round"——