"Hold on, Moriarty," I interrupted, recalling myself. "Let's hear that fifty-to-one offer again. Am I to understand that if Toby has letters for the station and none for me, you win; if he has letters for me and none for the station, I win; and, failing the fulfilment of either double, the wager is off?"
"That's it. Are you on?"
"Make it a hundred to one."
"Done! at a hundred to one—in what?"
"Half-sovereigns," I replied, feeling for the purse which, vulgar as it is, bushmen even of aristocratic lineage are compelled to carry. I placed the little coin—about one-tenth of my total wealth—in Moriarty's hand. He shrank from the touch.
"What do you mean?" he asked petulantly. "I might n't win it, after all.
Don't be more disagreeable than you can help."
"You intend to get it without giving an equivalent—don't you? You know it's yours. Are n't you betting on a certainty? Lay it on the window-sill, if you like, and pick it up when you can read your title clear. If you don't speculate, you won't accumulate; and I suppose you've no objection to looking into the morality of your speculation"——
I had cleared my throat for a disquisition which would have been intolerable to the unprincipled reader, when a very curious thing arrested the attention both of Moriarty and myself—the strangest coincidence, perhaps, within the personal experience of either of us—a conjuncture, in fact, which for a moment threw us both staggering back on the theology of childhood. At the present time, I feel too meek to attempt any unravelment, and too haughty to offer any apology other than that such is life.
The half-caste had cantered up to the horse-paddock gate, had dismounted, had divested his horse of the saddle and bridle, and had given the animal a slap with the latter. Now he was depositing those equipments in the shed. Now he approached us, taking two letters and a newspaper from the tail-pocket of what had once been an expensive dress-coat of Montgomery's.
"Yours, Collins," said he. "Don't say I never gave you nothing. Nix for you,
Mr. (adj.) Moriarty."