"Manners, please!—Appropriate, I was saying, to a blasted varmin like you? Permit me to remind you that Mrs. Montgomery, senior, gave a blanket for you when you were little."
"I know she did," replied the prince, with just a suspicion of vain-glory.
"Nobody would be fool enough to give a blanket for you when you was little.
Soolim!"
"Come on, Moriarty," said I, rising; "I must take a bit off the near end of my journey to-night."
"Howld your howlt, chaps," interposed the good-natured half-caste
"I'll run up your horses for you. I was on'y takin' a rise out o'
Mr. Mori—(adj.)—arty, Esquire; jist to learn him not to be quite so suddent."
And in another minute, he was striding down the paddock, with his bridle
and stockwhip.
Half an hour later, my horses were equipped; and, all the Levites being absent, four or five tribesmen slowly collected under Pawsome's shed, waiting to see what would happen. Cleopatra was not without reputation.
"Tell you what you better do," said Moriarty to me—"better hang your socks on Nosey Alf's crook to-night. His place is fifteen mile from here, and very little out of your way. Ill-natured, cranky beggar, Alf is—been on the pea—but there's no end of grass in his paddock. And I say—get him to give you a tune or two on his fiddle. Something splendid I believe. He's always getting music by post from Sydney. Montgomery had heard him sing and play, some time or other; and when old Mooney was here, just before last shearing, he sent Toby to tell Alf to come to the house in the evening, and bring his fiddle; and Alf came, very much against his grain. Young Mooney was asked into the house, on account of his dad being there; and he swears he never heard anything like Alf's style; though the stubborn devil would n't sing a word; nothing but play. And he was just as good on the piano as on the fiddle, though his hand must have been badly out. Mooney thinks he jibbed on singing because the women were there. Alf's a mis-mis-mis-dash it"——
"Mischief-maker?" I suggested.
"No.—mis—mis"——
"Mysterious character?"
"No, no.—mis—mis"——