did he know you had the stuff?" I gasped.

"Oh, yes, that's the fun of it. That's what made him so excited. He was
in the parlour all the time I was playing. But we might as well have a
drink!

"We did. I wanted it."

Bill turned in by-and-by, and looked like a sleeping innocent in the
moonlight. I sat up late, and smoked, and thought hard, and watched
Bill, and turned in, and thought till near daylight, and then went to
sleep, and had a nightmare about it. I dreamed I chased Stiffner forty
miles to buy his pub, and that Bill turned out to be his nephew.

Bill divvied up all right, and gave me half a crown over, but I didn't
travel with him long after that. He was a decent young fellow as far as
chaps go, and a good mate as far as mates go; but he was too far ahead
for a peaceful, easy-going chap like me. It would have worn me out in a
year to keep up to him.

P.S.--The name of this should have been:
'Bill and Stiffner (thirdly, Jim)'

WHEN THE SUN WENT DOWN

Jack Drew sat on the edge of the shaft, with his foot in the loop and
one hand on the rope, ready to descend. His elder brother, Tom, stood
at one end of the windlass and the third mate at the other. Jack paused
before swinging off, looked up at his brother, and impulsively held out
his hand:

"You ain't going to let the sun go down, are you, Tom?"

But Tom kept both hands on the windlass-handle and said nothing.

"Lower away!"

They lowered him to the bottom, and Tom shouldered his pick in silence
and walked off to the tent. He found the tin plate, pint-pot, and things
set ready for him on the rough slab table under the bush shed. The tea
was made, the cabbage and potatoes strained and placed in a billy near
the fire. He found the fried bacon and steak between two plates in the
camp-oven. He sat down to the table but he could not eat. He felt mean.
The inexperience and hasty temper of his brother had caused the quarrel
between them that morning; but then Jack admitted that, and apologized
when he first tried to make it up.

Tom moved round uneasily and tried to smoke: he could not get Jack's
last appeal out of his ears--"You ain't going to let the sun go down,
Tom?"

Tom found himself glancing at the sun. It was less than two hours from
sunset. He thought of the words of the old Hebrew--or Chinese--poet; he
wasn't religious, and the authorship didn't matter. The old poet's words
began to haunt him "Let not the sun go down upon your wrat