Ernest's place in going to Sydney with her, thrust costly
trifles upon her; he was fifty-five if he were a day, and a repulsive
debauchee at that. Dawn, so healthy and wholesome, loathed him. She
sat on her bed at night with her dainty toes on the floor, and raved
while she combed her fine-spun brown hair. I let her rave, believing
this a good antidote for the worry of that dish of water that was
rarely out of her thoughts. I knew that she never omitted to scan the
football news in hopes of seeing the doings of a certain red-headed
player recorded there, and I also knew that she was doomed to
disappointment, unless she could connect R. E. Breslaw with R. Ernest
of the wash-up water incident.

A man of Pornsch's calibre is hard to abash, or Dawn would have
abashed him, but failing to do so, at last she came to me requesting
that I should assist her to get rid of him.

"I don't want to complain to grandma," said she. "It might get abroad
if she took it in hand, so I'd like to choke him off myself if I
could. I have enough to suffer already;" and I knew she was again
thinking of that fatal dish of water, and how "Dora" Eweword twitted
her concerning it.

Then I took Dawn on my knee as it were, and told her a story. It was
such a painful story that I first extracted from her a solemn promise
that she would not make a fuss of any sort, for this young woman
lacked restraint--that command over her emotions which, if carefully
adjusted and gauged, will make the work of a talented artist pass for
genius, and that of a genius pass for the work of a god.

When his connection with the ill-fated young girl, who had slipped out
in the dead of night to throw herself in the gently gliding Noonoon,
became known to Dawn, I was afraid her horror would so betray her that
any subsequent plans for the punishment of the miscreant might fall
through.

"I'll knock him down with the poker next time he comes. I'll throw a
kettle of boiling water on him as sure as eggs are eggs. Fancy the
reptile leering around me: I felt nearly poisoned as it was, but I
didn't know he was a murderer as well! Oh, the hide of him to come
here! I really will throw boiling water on him!"

Dawn continued in this strain for some time, but as she quieted down
became possessed of a notion to tar and feather him in the manner
mentioned by her grandmother in one of her anecdotes. Carry and I were
to be called upon to assist in this ceremony, which was to take place