“Yes; I think I’ll take a good stiff nobbler.  I feel a trifle squeamish.  It gave me a bit of a turn when I rose to the top and could not see you.  I was afraid the boat might have stunned you in capsizing, and you would be drowned before I could find you.”

“Yes; I would have been such a loss to the world in general if I had been drowned,” I said satirically.

Several jackeroos, a neighbouring squatter, and a couple of bicycle tourists turned up at Five-Bob that evening, and we had a jovial night.  The great, richly furnished drawing-room was brilliantly lighted, and the magnificent Erard grand piano sang and rang again with music, now martial and loud, now soft and solemn, now gay and sparkling.  I made the very pleasant discovery that Harold Beecham. was an excellent pianist, a gifted player on the violin, and sang with a strong, clear, well-trained tenor, which penetrated far into the night.  How many, many times I have lived those nights over again!  The great room with its rich appointments, the superb piano, the lights, the merriment, the breeze from the east, rich with the heavy intoxicating perfume of countless flowers; the tall perfect figure, holding the violin with a master hand, making it speak the same language as I read in the dark eyes of the musician, while above and around was the soft warmth of an Australian summer night.

Ah, health and wealth, happiness and youth, joy and light, life and love!  What a warm-hearted place is the world, how full of pleasure, good, and beauty, when fortune smiles! When fortune smiles!

Fortune did smile, and broadly, in those days.  We played tricks on one another, and had a deal of innocent fun and frolic.  I was a little startled one night on retiring to find a huge goanna near the head of my bed.  I called Harold to dislodge the creature, when it came to light that it was roped to the bedpost.  Great was the laughter at my expense.  Who tethered the goanna I never discovered, but I suspected Harold.  In return for this joke, I collected all the portable docks in the house—­about twenty—­and arrayed them on his bedroom table.  The majority of them were Waterburys for common use, so I set each alarm for a different hour.  Inscribing a placard “Hospital for Insane”, I erected it above his door.  Next morning I was awakened at three o’clock by fifteen alarms in concert outside my door.  When an hour or two later I emerged I found a notice on my door, “This way to the Zoo”.

It was a very busy time for the men at Five-Bob.  Waggons were arriving with &hearing supplies, for it was drawing nigh unto the great event of the year.  In another week’s time the bleat of thousands of sheep, and the incense of much tar and wool, would be ascending to the heavens from the vicinity of Five-Bob Downs.  I was looking forward to the shearing.  There never was any at Caddagat.  Uncle did not keep many sheep, and always sold them long-woolled and rebought after shearing.