gistrate's
property as if it were at least half his own. So he got very drunk
on the hospitality of a new chum miner who had been successful, and
presently, presuming on his new possessions, got into a fight with
his entertainer and a disrespectful subking of his own blacks, and was
reduced to worse rags than ever.

Next morning he sat outside the magistrate's house, on the lowest log he
could find, and when Mr. Colborn came out he tackled him with the air of
a subject king demanding redress of his suzerain.

"Well, Billy, what is it?" asked the suzerain.

"You belong gublement?" said Billy the king, with a question, an implied
doubt, and a great complaint in his voice. Colborn laughed.

"Why, yes, Billy; I belong to the government, I suppose."

"Then," said Billy, "what you say to white fellow make 'um black fellow
drunk, knock 'um all about? Call you that gublement?" And he showed his
kingly robe, which had once been a frock-coat, with great disgust.

However, he met with no favour, and was told that he should not get
drunk--that it served him right; with which magisterial decision Colborn
got on his horse and rode off to the flat.

The king sat down sadly and considered thickly in his slow brain.
Annie did not come out, and he knew better than to ask for her, for Mr.
Colborn's niece, who kept house for him, was but newly come from home,
and thought all black fellows congenital murderers, which indeed they
are in some parts of the north. So Billy sat and waited, for he wanted a
new coat. How could he be respected in one whose natural divisions were
unnaturally extended to the very neck? It was obviously necessary to get
a new garment at once, and the best chance of a good one lay in little
Annie's kindness. But in order to obviate the slightest chance of his
girl patron's refusing, he must bring her some offering. He went off
into the bush at the back of the town, and, coming to where three or
four black fellows were camped, he sat down and talked with them. In
spite of the heat, a wretched old gin, muffled up in her one garment,
a ragged blanket, held her hands over the few burning sticks which
represent an Australian native's idea of a fire. Presently King Billy
rose, and, taking a tomahawk, went farther into the bush. He looked
about, and at last came to a tree, which he climbed native fashion,
first discarding his clothes. When near the first big branches he came
to a hole, and, putting in his hand, he extr