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 Boxer is.  He might kick some of the other horses if you don’t keep a sharp look-out,” he said, turning to his jackeroo.

“Ladies before gentlemen,” I interposed.  I want Mr Archer to take me to grannie, then he can go and look after old Boxer.”

“I’ll escort you,” said Beecham.

“Thank you, but I have requested Mr Archer to do so.”

“In that case, I beg your pardon, and will attend to Boxer while Joe does as you request.”

Raising his hat he walked swiftly away with a curious expression on his usually pleasant face.

“By Jove, I’m in for it!” ejaculated my escort.  “The boss doesn’t get that expression on his face for nothing.  You take my tip for it, he felt inclined to seize me by the scruff of the neck and kick me from here to Yabtree.”

“Go on!”

“It’s a fact.  He did not believe in me not going to do his bidding immediately.  He has a roaring derry on disobedience.  Everyone has to obey him like winkie or they can take their beds up and trot off quick and lively.”

“Mr Beecham has sufficient sense to see I was the cause of your disobedience,” I replied.

“That’s where it is.  He would not have cared had it been some other lady, but he gets mad if any one dares to monopolize you.  I don’t know how you are going to manage him.  He is a pretty hot member sometimes.”

“Mr Archer, you presume!  But throwing such empty banter aside, is Mr Beecham really bad-tempered?”