'No, on my honour.'
'Then I am the last man to tell you.'
Dr Tom sighed and glanced out of his eyes at Jim.
That 'sticking up' case at Potter's Shanty had puzzled more than one clever man.
Now the little chap has pulled through, and death is not knocking at his door, it may be as well to relate the incident.
Potter's Shanty was a public-house, a wayside hotel, a dispensary for every kind of infernal liquor, bad and indifferent—there was no good.
The mail coach stopped at Potter's, and it was reported to the police that sometimes the mails stopped there also. Potter's was a curious old place, and lay, or, to be more correct, tried to stand, between Swamp Creek and Wanabeen. Old Potter was a relic of bygone days. He had been mixed up with the Kelly gang over the border, and at various times a hospitable Government had entertained him without his sanction.
Old Potter was a trifle of a moralist in his way. He could neither read or write; so on one occasion when he was accused of forgery he brought forward unimpeachable evidence in his favour.
The Crown had produced a mass of evidence which proved up to the hilt that old Potter was an unmitigated thief, but the prosecution went too far, as prosecutions occasionally do, and proved too much. It was sworn on oath (Potter was particular about oaths) that old Samuel Potter had forged a signature to a bill.
'What's a bill?' asked Samuel.