careful of
Harry Beecham in a temper. He is like a raging lion, and when his temper
dies away is a sulking brute, which is the vilest of all tempers. But he
is not vindictive, and is easy managed, if you don't mind giving in and
coaxing a little."

"Now, uncle, you have had your say, I will have mine. You seem to think I
have more than a friendly regard for Mr Beecham, but I have not. I would
not marry him even if I could. I am so sick of every one thinking I would
marry any man for his possessions. I would not stoop to marry a king if I
did not love him. As for trying to win a man, I would scorn any action
that way; I never intend to marry. Instead of wasting so much money on me
in presents and other ways, I wish you would get me something to do, a
profession that will last me all my life, so that I may be independent."

"No mistake, you're a rum youngster. You can be my companion till further
orders. That's a profession that will last you a goodish while."

With this I had to be contented, as I saw he considered what I had said
as a joke.

I left uncle and went in quest of grannie, who, by this, was beyond the
other side of the course, fully a quarter of a mile away. Going in her
direction I met Joe Archer, one of the Five-Bob jackeroos, and a great
chum of mine. He had a taste for literature, and we got on together like
one o'clock. We sat on a log under a stringybark-tree and discussed the
books we had read since last we met, and enjoyed ourselves so much that
we quite forgot about the races or the flight of time until recalled from
book-land by Harold Beecham's voice.

"Excuse me, Miss Melvyn, but your grannie has commissioned me to find you
as we want to have lunch, and it appears you are the only one who knows
the run of some of the tucker bags."

"How do you do, Mr Beecham? Where are they going to have lunch?"

"Over in that clump of box-trees," he replied, pointing in the direction
of a little rise at a good distance.

"How are you enjoying yourself?" he asked, looking straight at me.

"Treminjous intoirely, sor," I replied.

"I suppose you know the winner of every race," he remarked, quizzically
watching Joe Archer, who was blushing and as uneasy as a schoolgirl when
nabbed in the enjoyment of an illicit love-letter.

"Really, Mr Beecham, Mr Archer and I have been so interested in ourselves
that we quite forgot there was such a thing as a race at all," I
returned.

"You'd better see where old Box