asked the magistrate,
without any politeness to him who ruled the land before white men broke
into the country. Some in authority are polite to those they dispossess;
the Prussians, for instance, to the miserable King Billys who strut
about the empire. But the Anglo-Saxon only respects himself, and even
that to a limited extent, in new conquests.

The question troubled King Billy greatly. He did not know that Mr.
Colborn would as soon have thought of murdering Annie as of bullying
her; so he lied promptly: "Me buy 'um, Mistah Cobon!"

Mr. Colborn took it off of his head, and saw that it was his, as he had
thought. What he would have said I do not know, for just then he heard a
voice behind him:

"Papa, it is my fault; I gave it to King Billy."

Colborn turned round and took her up, letting fall the hat as he did
so. Billy made a jump, picked it up, and, in his agitation, brushed it
carefully the wrong way.

"My dear, if you gave it to him it's all right. But why didn't the old
fool tell me?"

"He's not an old fool, papa, and you must not say so. He's a good man,
and I think he thought you would be angry with me. Didn't you, King
Billy?" And the king, with a smile of conscious rectitude, admitted it
was so.

Mr. Colborn gave him sixpence; and he gave Annie a great many kisses,
declaring, with uncommon thoughtlessness, that whatever she did was
right, and that she could give the king all his house, and Australia to
boot. Whereon King Billy smiled a smile that was portentous, and showed
his teeth to the uttermost recesses of his ample mouth. Looking down, he
surveyed the rest of his clothes, which in parts resembled the child's
definition of a net as a lot of holes tied together with string, and,
looking up, he inspected Mr. Colborn as if estimating the resources of
his wardrobe. But being urgently smitten with the necessity of getting
rid of his sixpence, he shambled off into the town. Other matters might
wait; that admitted of no delay.

The mind of King Billy was not a big mind; it would no more have taken
in an abstract idea than his _gunyah_ would have accommodated a grand
piano. He was as simple as sunlight, and to resolve his intellect into
seven colours would want the most ingenious spectroscope. But he could
make an inference from a positive fact, and, having made it, he did not
allow more remote deductions to trouble his legitimate conclusion. He
ceased to fear Mr. Colborn, and began to look upon the ma