hing better; but you and Jim are. Now, look here, I've got a small
contract from Mr. Andrews for a lot of fencing stuff. It will pay us
wages and something over. If you like to go in with me, we'll go share
and share. I know what hands you both are at splitting and fencing. What
do you say?'
Jim, poor Jim, was inclined to take George's offer. He was that
good-hearted that a kind word would turn him any time. But I was put out
at his laying it down so about the Dalys and us shantying and gaffing,
and I do think now that some folks are born so as they can't do without
a taste of some sort of fun once in a way. I can't put it out clear, but
it ought to be fixed somehow for us chaps that haven't got the gift of
working all day and every day, but can do two days' work in one when
we like, that we should have our allowance of reasonable fun and
pleasure--that is, what we called pleasure, not what somebody thinks we
ought to take pleasure in. Anyway, I turned on George rather rough, and
I says, 'We're not good enough for the likes of you, Mr. Storefield.
It's very kind of you to think of us, but we'll take our own line and
you take yours.'
'I'm sorry for it, Dick, and more sorry that you take huff at an
old friend. All I want is to do you good, and act a friend's part.
Good-bye--some day you'll see it.'
'You're hard on George,' says Jim, 'there's no pleasing you to-day; one
would think there were lots of chaps fighting how to give us a lift.
Good-bye, George, old man; I'm sorry we can't wire in with you; we'd
soon knock out those posts and rails on the ironbark range.'
'You'd better stop, Jim, and take a hand in the deal,' says I (or,
rather, the devil, for I believe he gets inside a chap at times), 'and
then you and George can take a turn at local-preaching when you're cut
out. I'm off.' So without another word I jumped on to my horse and went
off down the hill, across the creek, and over the boulders the other
side, without much caring where I was going. The fact was, I felt I had
acted meanly in sneering at a man who only said what he did for my good;
and I wasn't at all sure that I hadn't made a breach between Gracey and
myself, and, though I had such a temper when it was roused that all the
world wouldn't have stopped me, every time I thought of not seeing that
girl again made my heart ache as if it would burst.
I was nearly home before I heard the clatter of a horse's feet, and Jim
rode up alongside of me. He w
|