I had cleared my throat for a disquisition which would have been intolerable to the unprincipled reader, when a very curious thing arrested the attention both of Moriarty and myself—the strangest coincidence, perhaps, within the personal experience of either of us—a conjuncture, in fact, which for a moment threw us both staggering back on the theology of childhood. At the present time, I feel too meek to attempt any unravelment, and too haughty to offer any apology other than that such is life.
The half-caste had cantered up to the horse-paddock gate, had dismounted, had divested his horse of the saddle and bridle, and had given the animal a slap with the latter. Now he was depositing those equipments in the shed. Now he approached us, taking two letters and a newspaper from the tail-pocket of what had once been an expensive dress-coat of Montgomery's.
"Yours, Collins," said he. "Don't say I never gave you nothing. Nix for you, Mr. (adj.) Moriarty."
"You're very laconic," observed the storekeeper in a hollow voice, yet eyeing the prince sternly; "very laconic, indeed, I must say. If I was you, I would n't be quite so laconic. How the (sheol) comes it that you did n't fetch the mail?"
"Need n't look in that paper for the Flemington, Collins," said the heir-apparent; "she's a day too soon. I took a squint at her, comin' along."
"I was asking how the (adj. sheol) you managed to come without the mail?" repeated Moriarty, with dignity.
"I heard you, right enough. I ain't deaf. Well, I come on a moke. Think I padded it? Fact was, Moriarty, I met Magomery at Bailey's Tank, an' he told me to go like blazes to Scandalous Sandy's hut, on Nalrooka, an' tell him a lot o' his sheep was boxed with ours in the Boree Paddick. 'I'll fetch the mail home myself,' says he. There now."
"And why didn't you go to Scandalous Sandy's?" nagged Moriarty.
"Well, considerin' you're boss o' this station, an' my bit o' filthy lucre comes out o' your pocket, I got great pleasure informin' you I met ole Gladstone, comin' to tell us the same yarn. Anything else you want to know?"
"Did you hear which crew won the regatta?" asked Moriarty, almost civilly.
"Sydney," replied the prince. "Think you Port Phillipers could lick us?"
"That's a lie!" exclaimed Moriarty, catching his breath.
"Right. It's a lie, if you like. I got no stuff on it. See what Collins' paper says. An' now I feel like as if I could do a bit o' dinner—unless you got any objections?"
He stalked away toward the hut, whilst I opened what turned out to be a love-letter—evidently intended for some other member of our diffusive clan, for I could make neither head nor tail of it; nothing, indeed, but heart, and such heart as it has never been my luck to capture. Meanwhile, Moriarty had cut the string of the newspaper, and was running his eye over its columns.
