‘I will do my best, aunt,’ answered the young hypocrite demurely.
‘How thankful I am that we have got rid of that odious Mr Dulcimer!’
Bella’s black eyes danced with mischief; it was all she could do to keep back a laugh. ‘O auntie, auntie, if you only knew!’ she whispered to herself.
When she reached the door of the hotel, she could not resist turning her head for a parting look. No one was about, and Dick blew her a kiss. She blushed, she knew not why, but it was certainly not with indignation.
‘Well,’ mused Mr Dulcimer with a sigh as he resumed his seat under the tree; ‘if she won’t have me, I’ll cut the old country and try sheep-farming at the antipodes. Capital cure for love, sheep-farming.’ Taking a pipecase out of his pocket, he extracted therefrom a highly coloured meerschaum. ‘Come along, old friend; let you and me have a confab together. Stay, though, is it the correct thing for a curate—and I suppose everybody will insist on taking me for one—to smoke a meerschaum? Well, if they don’t do it in public, lots of them do it in private. Jolly fellows, some curates—others awful duffers.’ He rose and stretched himself. ‘There must be a quiet nook somewhere among those trees where a fellow can enjoy a whiff without the world being the wiser?’ Whereupon he sauntered away towards the lower part of the grounds, his hands behind his back and his book under his arm, totally unaware that his movements were being watched by a pair of bright black eyes from an upper window of the hotel.
INTERVIEWED BY A BUSHRANGER.
I was staying in Sydney for a few weeks, and had put up at the Polynesian Club. There I made the acquaintance of a young colonial journalist, by name Alison Fellgate, a frank, clever, easy-going fellow, who had compressed a good deal of life into his forty years. One evening after dinner we sat smoking under the broad veranda that ran round three sides of the Club building. Presently, Fellgate took out his watch and held it in his hand for a few moments. ‘I have an engagement this evening, but there is plenty of time yet,’ he said.
‘I have several times noticed what a particularly handsome watch that is of yours, Fellgate,’ I said.
‘Ah, that watch has a story,’ he replied.
‘I have observed some sort of inscription on it. A presentation, I suppose?’