must often have bored her, but
she apparently was ever interested in it.

I told her long yarns of how I had spent my time at the Beechams; of the
deafening ducts Harold and I had played on the piano; and how he would
persist in dancing with me, and he being so tall and broad, and I so
small, it was like being stretched on a hay-rack, and very fatiguing. I
gave a graphic account of the arguments--tough ones they were too--that
Miss Augusta had with the overseer on religion, and many other subjects;
of one jackeroo who gabbed never-endingly about his great relations at
home; another who incessantly clattered about spurs, whips, horses, and
sport; and the third one--Joe Archer--who talked literature and trash with
me.

"What was Harry doing all this time?" asked auntie. "What did he say?"

Harold had been present all the while, yet I could not call to mind one
thing he had said. I cannot remember him ever holding forth on a subject
or cause, as most people do at one time or another.

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

Idylls of Youth

In pursuance of his duty a government mail-contractor passed Caddagat
every Monday, dropping the Bossier mail as he went. On Thursday we also
got the post, but had to depend partly on our own exertions.

A selector at Dogtrap, on the Wyambeet run, at a point of the compass ten
miles down the road from Caddagat, kept a hooded van. Every Thursday he
ran this to and from Gool-Gool for the purpose of taking to market
vegetables and other farm produce. He also took parcels and passengers,
both ways, if called upon to do so. Caddagat and Five-Bob gave him a
great deal of carrying, and he brought the mail for these and two or
three other places. It was one of my duties, or rather privileges, to
ride thither on Thursday afternoon for the post, a leather bag slung
round my shoulders for the purpose. I always had a splendid mount, and
the weather being beautifully hot, it was a jaunt which I never failed to
enjoy. Frank Hawden went with me once or twice--not because grannie or I
thought his escort necessary. The idea was his own; but I gave him such a
time that he was forced to relinquish accompanying me as a bad job.

Harold Beecham kept a snivelling little Queensland black boy as a sort of
black-your-boots, odd-jobs slavey or factotum, and he came to Dogtrap for
the mail, but after I started to ride for it Harold came regularly for
his mail himself. Our homeward way lay together for two miles, b