"It isn't a joke the bank would appreciate at any rate," returned Gray, with another laugh.
He did not continue the subject
"You get a talk with Mr. Morton, lad," said Harding to him, as they stood outside the hut, ready to start for their day's work. "He'll listen to you, I know. Tell him you're tired of the work here."
"What's the good of telling him that?" returned Gray, with a shrug of his shoulders. "I'm tired of work everywhere—tired and sick of this horrible country, and everything and everybody in it."
"Well, Morton might help you to a post in Adelaide," said Harding, who had been much troubled by Gray's constant despondency of late. "You'd have better company there. It's more like England, you know."
"What post could he get me in Adelaide?" returned Gray, with a bitter irony in his tone. "And do you think it would be any pleasure to me to sit in an office and see the carriages driving by? I had enough of that in England. No, I'd be off to the diamond fields if I'd the cash for the journey. Do you think Morton would lend me that?"
Harding shook his head sorrowfully.
"I wish I knew how I could help you, lad. I can't bear to see you like this. I wish Polly was here. She'd know how to talk to you better than I do."
Gray cast a scornful look at his companion's troubled face. It rankled in his heart that Harding should pity him.
"Are we going to stand talking here all day?" he said irritably. "Aren't you going to get the horses out?"