“Shows what a fine country Australia is, when a gentleman may be nearly run in for ‘duffing’ one month, and the next have all the world bowing and scraping to him as a millionaire! That’s not my line, though, is it? The money, if you had ten times as much, wouldn’t make Sheila Maguire more your friend—your real friend—than she is now. The other way on, if anything. And there’s a young lady down the river—not that I even myself with her, only she’s a ‘cornstalk’—one of the same brand, as the saying is. She don’t mind the dirty money—any fool can come by that, or any man that’s contented to live like a black-fellow, and save farthings till they mount up. He can’t help it. But who’d take him, with his muck-rake?
“Great book, Pilgrim’s Progress, isn’t it? Just fell across it.
“‘What the devil’s the girl driving at?’ I hear you say. That’s not much of a swear for Bunjil, is it? Well, you’ll see about it in the postscript, by and by.
“First and foremost, I want a hundred shares in the Great Comstock Associated. On the ground floor. Original, like the Broken Hill Proprietary.
“An uncle of mine, old Barney Maguire, of Black Dog Creek, died a month ago, and left us boys and girls five thousand apiece. He couldn’t read and write, but he had ten thousand acres of good freehold land, river flats, too, and a tidy herd of cattle—every one knows the ‘B. M.’ brand. Some good horses, too. Comes of saving and screwing. He lived by the creek bank in an old bark hut with two rooms, never married, and never gave one of us boys and girls the value of a neck-ribbon or a saddle-strap while he was alive. I’m sending a cheque for the scrip, so make your secretary post them at once. As you’re a director, you’ll have to sign your real name, so I’ll know what it is. I never was sure of the other. You’re born lucky, and I’m going to back you right out. Perhaps I am, too, and might rise in life; who knows? I’m going to work up my education on the chance. What I learned at She-oak Flat’ll stick to me. So we’ll see. And now for the postscript. I looked it out—derived from post scriptum (written after). Never thought what ‘P.S.’ meant before. Easy enough when you know, isn’t it?
“Well, ‘let me see!’ says the blind man—oh! I forgot; that’s vulgar—no more of that for Miss Sheila Maguire—one of the Maguires of Tumut. ‘Fine gal, aw. Hear she’s got money, don’t yer know?’ Ha! ha! they won’t catch me that way. ‘I’ve travelled,’ though it’s only on a bush track. False start; come back to the post, all of you! The straight tip is this—‘a dead cert.’ I had it from my cousin, Joe Macintyre, her that was maid to Mrs. Bruce. Miss Imogen hadn’t influenza—only a bit of a cold; but she was real bad and low, all the same, after a certain gentleman went away. No word, and no letters came back. She’d sit and cry for hours. No interest in anything; not a smile out of her for days. Then she got ill, and no mistake; lower and lower—close up died. Doctors gave her up. Had to go to Sydney for change. I saw her in the train at Wagga. My word! I hardly knew her. She was that dog-poor and miserable, pale as a ghost, I nearly cried. Now she’s home again, and looks better, Joe says.
“But if some one doesn’t turn up before the summer’s well on, I shall know what to think him who was a man and a gentleman, but that no one about here will call either the one or the other again, least of all,
“His friend and well-wisher,
“Sheila Maguire.
“P.S. No. 2.—Strikes me this isn’t very different to the Church Service, which begins with ‘Dearly beloved,’ and ends with ‘amazement.’ What do you think?”