"I hope she doesn't, 'cause I'm her only boy, and goodness knows I've got none!" said Dick, grinning.
Mrs. Lester laughed, rising.
"Brains aren't everything, certainly," she said. "We're slowing down. I think this must be Ballarat. Come on, Dick, and stretch your legs on the platform—we wait here for awhile." She nodded kindly to the American, and Dick followed her out of the car.
It was Ballarat. They ran into a big, crowded platform, with a domed, lofty roof, that glimmered mysteriously far above them. They went outside and strolled up a quiet street, but were too nervous about their tram to go far, since an Adelaide express waits for no man.
"Some day," Mrs. Lester said, "we'll come here and hear the bands play."
"Have they got many?" asked Dick.
"They collect them from all over Australia once a year, and they play all the time for big prizes. That is, when they are not playing for prizes, they are practising. So it goes on all day; you wake in the morning to band music and you go to sleep at night to the tune of a quickstep; and when you go out during the day you generally find yourself keeping in step with a band marching beside you, playing for dear life. Then each instrument has its own tune. I was once inveigled into a hall where I heard forty-nine euphoniums play 'There's a Flower that Bloometh.'"
"Forty-nine!" said Dick, laughing. "It sounds a bit tall. Did you like it, mother?"
"I think it is necessary to be a specialist to enjoy that sort of thing thoroughly," his mother said. "I fled at the nineteenth, and that weary old tune beat in my brain for a week. But the other music is lovely. We'll go some day, Dickie."
They came back to the station, and, finding the crowd too dense for comfort, sought their own compartment, where a transformation awaited them. The bare wall opposite the seat had been let down and now a comfortable bed with snowy sheets was ready on each side of the aisle. The conductor hovered near.