riendships, and the like. And then, for
some months prior to a general election, the cobbler edited the local
weekly newspaper, and was largely instrumental in returning the
Dursley-born candidate to parliament, in place of an interfering
upstart from Kempsey way. It was not at all a question of politics,
but of Dursley and its interests.

By this time Mr. Perkins had gone some way towards Omniferacious
Agenthood. He had very successfully negotiated sundry sales and
purchases for townsmen, who shared that disinclination to call in
conventionally recognised professional assistance which I have often
noticed in rural Australia. Then he married the daughter of the
newspaper proprietor, whose brother was one of Dursley's leading
storekeepers. Everybody now liked him, except a few crotchety or petty
souls, who, not understanding him, suspected him of ridiculing or
exposing them in some way, and in any case mistrusted his jollity, his
success, and his popularity. Even in the beginning, before the famous
notice-board was thought of, and while Mr. Perkins's work was yet
'awlicular,' I gathered that several old residents had set their faces
firmly against this invincibly merry fellow, and done all they could
to 'keep him in his place.'

And now he bought and sold for them: their houses, land, timber,
fruit, produce, live-stock, and property of every sort and kind,
making a larger income than most of them in the doing of it, and
accomplishing all this purely by force of his personality. He
succeeded where others failed, because so few could help liking him;
and if he failed but seldom in anything he undertook, that was
probably due in part to the fact that he never thought and never spoke
of failure, preferring always as topics more cheerful matters. His
wife had become a permanent invalid very shortly after their marriage,
yet no person could possibly have made the mistake of thinking George
Perkins's marriage a failure. I doubt if a happier married pair could
have been found in Australia.

The meal we called tea (though we drank tea at every other meal) was
partaken of by Mrs. Gabbitas and myself at half-past five, and by Mr.
and Mrs. Perkins at six o'clock. I was given to understand at the
outset that no work was expected of me after tea. Once or twice of a
summer evening I went out into the garden to perform some trifling
task I had overlooked, and upon being seen there by Mr. Perkins was
saluted with some such remark as: