“But a man must have a little fun when he is young,” I said. “What’s the use of having money when you’re old and rusty, and can’t take pleasure in anything?”

“A man needn’t be so very old at forty,” he says then, “and twenty years’ steady work will put all of us youngsters well up the ladder. Besides, I don’t call it fun getting half-drunk with a lot of blackguards at a low pothouse or a shanty, listening to the stupid talk and boasting lies of a pack of loafers and worse. They’re fit for nothing better; but you and Jim are. Now, look here, I’ve got a small contract from Mr. Andrews for a lot of fencing stuff. It will pay us wages and something over. If you like to go in with me, we’ll go share and share. I know what hands you both are at splitting and fencing. What do you say?”

Jim, poor Jim, was inclined to take George’s offer. He was that good-hearted that a kind word would turn him any time. But I was put out at his laying it down so about the Dalys and us shantying and gaffing, and I do think now that some folks are born so as they can’t do without a taste of some sort of fun once in a way. I can’t put it out clear, but it ought to be fixed somehow for us chaps that haven’t got the gift of working all day and every day, but can do two days’ work in one when we like, that we should have our allowance of reasonable fun and pleasure—that is, what we called pleasure, not what somebody thinks we ought to take pleasure in. Anyway, I turned on George rather rough, and I says, “We’re not good enough for the likes of you, Mr Storefield. It’s very kind of you to think of us, but we’ll take our own line and you take yours.”

“I’m sorry for it, Dick, and more sorry that you take huff at an old friend. All I want is to do you good, and act a friend’s part. Good-bye—some day you’ll see it.”

“You’re hard on George,” says Jim; “there’s no pleasing you to day; one would think there were lots of chaps fighting how to give us a lift. Good-bye, George, old man; I’m sorry we can’t wire in with you; we’d soon knock out those posts and rails on the ironbark range.”

“You’d better stop, Jim, and take a hand in the deal,” says I (or, rather, the devil, for I believe he gets inside a chap at times), “and then you and George can take a turn at local-preaching when you’re cut out. I’m off.” So without another word I jumped on to my horse and went off down the hill, across the creek, and over the boulders the other side, without much caring where I was going. The fact was, I felt I had acted meanly in sneering at a man who only said what he did for my good; and I wasn’t at all sure that I hadn’t made a breach between Gracey and myself, and, though I had such a temper when it was roused that all the world wouldn’t have stopped me, every time I thought of not seeing that girl again made my heart ache as if it would burst.