And this was the man who, a year ago, had been so unable to commit himself to Federation he could speak for two hours on the subject and at the end of that time one still did not know if was in favour or against. The papers had dubbed him ‘Yes-No Reid’. Could this man one day be Australia’s prime minister? wondered Alasdair. The fellow was a great orator—the finest in the empire if you believed what some said, but his enormous girth (which one was hard put to ignore), that absurd moustache, the monocle he affected to wear, all of it made him less the eminent statesman and more the comic figure of vaudeville. Yet look at the people—for they were now taking a vote: for or against? And here was the response: all of them to a man in favour of Federation. But, no, one fellow here at the back voting in the negative. Still, all but one in favour. Resounding cheers all around the hall and a vote of thanks from the mayor. Alasdair slapped the Premier on the back, he offered his heartiest congratulations.

How did Reid do it? The man was in his mid-fifties if he was a day, he had just returned from a gruelling tour of the Northern Rivers, an engagement at Sydney, then he had shot back up to Newcastle and now here he was at the start of a Tour of the South yet he looked as fresh as a batsman at the start of an innings. Alasdair had barely attended a meeting outside the city before today yet he felt close to collapse. Was superhuman endurance the mark of a premier, he wondered, of a potential prime minister?

He did not know. Whenever he imagined that man, Australia’s first prime minister, it was not Mr Reid, his own leader, whom he pictured in the role, it was Mr Barton, and that was awkward. He did not voice these thoughts, naturally, but there was no denying that the leader of the Opposition—who had chosen to remain in the city and was speaking at Waverley this very evening and who was drawing crowds every bit as large as the Premier’s and delivering speeches reported every bit as enthusiastically in the Herald—looked the part, he spoke the part, he was the part. And perhaps Alasdair was not the only man who thought so. Even so, it was awkward.

‘Congratulations, sir,’ said Alasdair again, in case his first congratulations had not been quite hearty enough.

They were travelling to Junee that night then on to Cootamundra and Goulburn. Alasdair had found it necessary to get Greensmith to consult a map of the colony to locate Junee, and even after studying the map they had been none the wiser.

It was a long time to spend on a train with any man, not least the Premier.