“Oh, yes, I suppose so,” Bob answered. “Sometimes I'm a bit sorry for him; it must be pretty awful to be always under the heel of a she-dragon. Oh, and there was a really fatherly sort of letter from old Mr. Clinton. He's an old brick; and he's quite pleased about our finding you—or you finding us. He was always a bit worried lest Tommy should feel lonesome in Australia.”
“And not you?” Norah asked laughing.
“No, he didn't worry a bit about me; he merely hoped I'd be working too hard to notice lonesomeness. I think the old chap always was a bit doubtful that any fellow would get down to solid work after flying; he used to say the two things wouldn't agree. But you sent him a decent report of me, didn't you, sir?”
“Oh, yes—I wrote when you asked me, just after you bought this place,” David Linton said. “Told him you were working like a cart-horse, which was no more than the truth, and that Tommy was serving her adopted country as a cook; and that I considered your prospects good. He'll have had that letter before now—and I suppose others from you.”
“We wrote a few weeks ago—sent him a photograph of the house, and of Tommy on a horse, and Tommy told him all about our furniture,” Bob chuckled. “I don't quite know how a staid old London lawyer will regard the furniture; he won't understand its beauty a bit. But he ought to be impressed with our stern regard for economy.”
“He should,” said Mr. Linton with a twinkle. “And I presume you mentioned the sheep?”
“As a matter of fact,” said Tommy confidentially, “his letter was little but mutton. He described all his ewes in detail—”
“Colour of their eyes?” queried Wally.
“And their hair,” nodded Tommy. “I never read anything so poetical. And any enthusiasm he had over went to the pigs and the Kelpie pup!”
“But what about the cows?” laughed Norah. “And the young bullocks?”