“Right well,” I answered. We had dropped in at the Criterion, Swanson street, Melbourne, for an evening.
“Weel,” continued Sandy McLeod, “it’s a long time agone but I’ll never forget it.”
“Forget what?”
“The Garden Gully, did you ever hear the story?”
“No, I’m a new chum, as you know.”
I poured out a glass of Falon’s sparkling, at the sight Sandy smacked his lips. Sandy was a colonial solicitor and apparently an unprofitable mine to work for a story, so I bided my time. The glass of wine began to mellow his heart, for he abruptly exclaimed, “Men on gold fields are crazed with greed, but a good-looking woman sends them stark mad. Even I, Sandy McLeod, was once mad.”
“It was only a passing craze,” I suggested.
“Not a bit of it, mad for months, mad when awake and doubly mad when asleep.”
“What cured you?”
“A nip of the same dog,” and then he burst into a laugh. “One more glass and then I will tell you the story.”