who made the plan suggested; it would have looked better and
made the house cooler in summer."

I thought as I listened, and presently I saw that it was a case of
madness within madness, so to speak: he was mad on the idea that he
could build the house himself, and then he had moods when he imagined
that the house had been built and he had been married and had reared a
family.

"You could easily get the balcony carried round," I said; "it wouldn't
cost much--you can get good carpenters at Solong."

"Yes," he said. "I'll have it done after Christmas." Then he turned from
the house and blinked down at me. "I am sorry," he said, "that there's
no one at home. I sent the wife and family to Sydney for a change. I've
got the two boys at the Sydney Grammar School. I think I'll send the
eldest to King's School at Parramatta. The girls will have to get along
with a governess at home and learn to help their mother--"

And so he went on talking away just as a man who has made money in the
bush, and is married and settled down, might yarn to an old bachelor
bush mate.

"I suppose I'll have to get a good piano," he went on. "The girls must
have some amusement: there'll be no end of balls and parties. I suppose
the boys will soon be talking of getting `fivers' and `tenners' out of
the `guvner' or `old man.' It's the way of the world. And they'll marry
and leave us. It's the way of the world--"

It was awful to hear him go on like this, the more so because he never
smiled--just talked on as if he had said the same thing over and over
again. Presently he stopped, and his eyes and hands began to wander: he
sat down on his heel to the fire again and started poking it. I began
to feel uneasy; I didn't know what other sides there might be to his
madness, and wished the coach would come along.

"You've knocked about the bush a good deal?" I asked. I couldn't think
of anything else to say, and I thought he might break loose if I let him
brood too long.

"Yes," he said, "I have."

"Been in Queensland and the Gulf country, I suppose?"

"I have."

His tone and manner seemed a bit more natural. He had knocked about
pretty well all over Australia, and had been in many places where I
had been. I had got him on the right track, and after a bit he started
telling bush yarns and experiences, some of them awful, some of them
very funny, and all of them short and good; and now and then, looking
at the side of his face, which was all he tu