“No, Mallard, Australia is my home. I know nothing of England, for I left there when I was a child. As I told you, my poor father was one of the biggest sheep men in Victoria, and died soon after the bank foreclosed on him. The old station, which he named 'Melinda Downs,' after my mother, who has the good old-fashioned name of Melinda, has gone through a lot of vicissitudes since then; but a few weeks ago my agent in Sydney bought it for £10,000, and now my mother and sisters are going back there.”
“And yourself?”
“Oh, a year or two more—perhaps three or four; and then, when Chinkie's Flat is worked out, I too, will go south to the old home.”
Mallard sighed, and then, taking a cigar, lit it, and the two men smoked together in silence for a few minutes.
“Mallard!”
“Yes, old man.”
“This continual newspaper grind is pretty tough, isn't it?”
“Yes, it is. But thanks to you—by putting me on to the 'Day Dawn' Reef at Chinkie's Flat—I've made a thousand or two and can chuck it at any time.”
“Don't say 'chuck.' It's vulgar; and the editor of the 'leading journal in North Queensland' must not be vulgar,” and he smiled.
“Ah, Grainger my boy, you have been a good friend to me!”