Australia Felix Read Online Free PDF Page B

wrist and ankle, had invariably been the hungrier of the two; for, on the glossy damask of the big house, often not enough food was set to satisfy the growing appetites of himself and his sisters. -- "Dickybird, can't you see us, with our backs to the wall, in that little yard of yours, trying who could take the biggest bite? -- or going round the outside: 'Crust first, and though you burst, By the bones of Davy Jones!' till only a little island of jam was left?"
    Purdy laughed heartily at these and other incidents fished up by his friend from the well of the years; but he did not take part in the sport himself. He had not Mahony's gift for recalling detail: to him past was past. He only became alive and eager when the talk turned, as it soon did, on his immediate prospects.
    This time, to his astonishment, Mahony had had no trouble in persuading Purdy to quit the diggings. In addition, here was the boy now declaring openly that what he needed, and must have, was a fixed and steadily paying job. With this decision Mahony was in warm agreement, and promised all the help that lay in his power.
    But Purdy was not done; he hummed and hawed and fidgeted; he took off his hat and looked inside it; he wiped his forehead and the nape of his neck.
    Mahony knew the symptoms. "Come, Dickybird. Spit it out, my boy!"
    "Yes . . . er. . . . Well, the fact is, Dick, I begin to think it's time I settled down."
    Mahony gave a whistle. "Whew! A lady in the case?"
    "That's the chat. Just oblige yours truly by takin' a squint at this, will you?"
    He handed his friend a squarely-folded sheet of thinnest blue paper, with a large purple stamp in one corner, and a red seal on the back. Opening it Mahony discovered three crossed pages, written in a delicately pointed, minute, Italian hand.
    He read the letter to the end, deliberately, and with a growing sense of relief: composition, expression and penmanship, all met with his approval. "This is the writing of a person of some refinement, my son."
    "Well, er . . . yes," said Purdy. He seemed about to add a further word, then swallowed it, and went on: "Though, somehow or other, Till's different to herself, on paper. But she's the best of girls, Dick. Not one o' your ethereal, die-away, bread-and-butter misses. There's something of Till there is, and she's always on for a lark. I never met such girls for larks as her and 'er sister. The very last time I was there, they took and hung up . . . me and some other fellers had been stoppin' up a bit late the night before, and kickin' up a bit of a shindy, and what did those girls do? They got the barman to come into my room while I was asleep, and hang a bucket o' water to one of the beams over the bed. Then I'm blamed if they didn't tie a string from it to my big toe! I gives a kick, down comes the bucket and half drowns me. -- Gosh, how those girls did laugh!"
    "H'm!" said Mahony dubiously; while Purdy in his turn chewed the cud of a pleasant memory. -- "Well, I for my part should be glad to see you married and settled, with a good wife always beside you."
    "That's just the rub," said Purdy, and vigorously scratched his head.
    "Till's a first-class girl as a sweetheart and all that; but when I come to think of puttin' my head in the noose, from now till doomsday -- why then, somehow, I can't bring myself to pop the question."
    "There's going to be no trifling with the girl's feelings, I hope, sir?"
    "Bosh! But I say, Dick, I wish you'd turn your peepers on 'er and tell me what you make of 'er. She's AI 'erself, but she's got a mother. . . . By Job, Dick, if I thought Tilly 'ud ever get like that . . . and they're exactly the same build, too."
    It would certainly be well for him to inspect Purdy's flame, thought Mahony. Especially since the anecdote told did not bear out the good impression left by the letter -- went far, indeed, to efface it. Still, he was loath to extend his absence by spending a night at Geelong, where, a, it came out, the lady lived; and