"Chinkie's Flat" / 1904

After a very brief consultation together, Scott, speaking on behalf of his mates, said they were all willing, and not only willing, but pleased to “come in” with him, but they thought that he would only be acting fairly to himself if he, as manager of the battery, amalgamator, and general supervisor of the whole concern, took a salary of ten pounds a week.

“No, boys. I'll take six pounds if you like. Of course, however, you will not object to refunding me the money I am expending on the new machinery. As for the profits, we shall divide equally.

“Well then,” said Scott, banging his brawny fist on the table and turning to his mates, “if you treats us in that generous way, we must do the same with you as regards the stone we raise. Boys, I proposes that as our new mate is finding the money to start the old battery again, and going even shares with us in the gold from the tailings, that we go even shares with him in whatever gold we get from the claims.”

“Right,” was the unanimous response. And then they all came up one by one and shook hands with Grainger, whose face flushed with pleasure. Then Jansan produced a bottle of rum and Grainger gave them a toast—

“Boys, here's good luck to us all, and here's to the day when we shall hear the stampers banging away in the boxes and the 'Ever Victorious' be as victorious as she was in the good old days of the field.”

CHAPTER VI ~ “MAGNETIC VILLA”

“Magnetic Villa” was one of the “best” houses in the rising city of Townsville. It stood on the red, rocky, and treeless side of Melton Hill, overlooked the waters of Cleveland Bay, and faced the rather picturesque-looking island from whence it derived its name.

About ten months after the resurrection of the “Ever Victorious” and the concomitant reawakening to life of Chinkie's Flat, three ladies arrived by steamer from Sydney to take possession of the villa—then untenanted. In a few hours it was generally known that the newcomers were Mrs. Trappème, Miss Trappème, and Miss Lilla Trappème. There was also a Master Trappème, a lanky, ill-looking, spotted-faced youth of fourteen, in exceedingly new and badly-fitting clothes much too large for him. By his mother and sisters he was addressed as “Mordaunt,” though until a year or so previously his name had been Jimmy.

A few weeks after the ladies had installed themselves in the villa there appeared a special advertisement in the Townsville Champion (over the leader) informing the public that “Mrs. Lee-Trappème is prepared to receive a limited number of paying guests at 'Magnetic Villa.' Elegant appointments, superior cuisine, and that comfort and hospitality which can Only be obtained in a Highly-refined Family Circle.”

“Hallo!” said Mallard, the editor of the Champion, to Flynn, his sub, who called his attention to the advertisement, “so 'Magnetic Villa' is turned into a hash house, eh? Wonder who they are? 'Highly refined family circle'—sounds fishy, doesn't it? Do you know anything about them?”

“No, but old Maclean, the Melbourne drummer who came up in the Barcoo from Sydney with them, does—at least he knew the old man, who died about a year and a half ago.”

“What was he?”

“Bank messenger in Sydney at thirty bob a week; used to lend money to the clerks at high interest, and did very well; for when he pegged out he left the old woman a couple of thousand. His name was Trappem—John Trappem, but he was better known as 'Old Jack Trap.' When they came on board the Barcoo they put on no end of side, and they were 'Mrs., the Misses, and Master Lee-Trappème.'”

“Lord! what a joke! Did the drummer give the show away on board?”

“No, for a wonder. But he told me of it.”

“Daughters good looking?”

“Younger one is not too bad; elder's a terror—thin, bony, long face, long nose, long feet, long conceit of herself, and pretty long age, walks mincingly, like a hen on a hot griddle, and———”

“Oh, stop it! The old woman?”

“Fat, ruddy-faced, pleasant-looking, white hair, talks of her 'poor papaless girls,' &c. She's a pushing old geyser, however, and has already got the parsons and some of the other local nobility to call on her.”

“Wonder what sort of tucker they'd give one, Flynn? I'm tired of paying £6 a week at the beastly overcrowded dog-kennel, entitled the 'Royal' Hotel—save the mark!—and I'm game even to try a boarding-house, but,” and here he rubbed his chin, “this 'refined family circle' business, you know?”

“They all say that,” remarked the sub. “You couldn't expect 'em to tell the truth and say, 'In Paradise Mansions Mrs. de Jones feeds her boarders on anything cheap and nasty; the toilet jugs have no handles, and the floors are as dirty as the kitchen slave, who does the cooking and waits at table, and the family generally are objectionable in their manners and appearance.'”

“Are you game to come with me this afternoon and inspect 'Magnetic Villa' and the 'refined family circle'?”

“Yes. And, by Jove! if you take up your quarters there, I will do so as well. We could try it, anyway. I'm batching with Battray, the police inspector, and three other fellows. It was only going to cost us £3 a week each; it costs us more like £6.”

“Of course, too much liquor, and all that,” said the editor of the Champion, with a merry twinkle in his eye.

Scarcely had the sub-editor left when a knock announced another visitor, and Grainger, booted and spurred, entered the room.

Mallard jumped from his chair and shook hands warmly with him. “This is a surprise, Grainger. When did you get to town?”

“About an hour ago. Myra is with me; her six months' visit has come to an end, and my mother and my elder sister want her back again; so she is leaving in the next steamer. But all the hotels are packed full, and as the steamer does not leave for a week, I don't know how to manage. That's why I came to see you, thinking you might know of some place where we could put up for a week.”

“I shall be only too delighted to do all I can. The town is very full of people just now, and the hotels are perfect pandemoniums, what with Chinkie's Flat, the rush to the Haughton, Black Gully, and other places Townsville is off its head with bibulous prosperity, and lodgings of any kind fit for a lady are unobtainable. Ah, stop! I've forgotten something. I do know of a place which might suit Miss Grainger very well. Where is she now?”

“In the alleged sitting-room at the 'Queen's.' I gave the head waiter a sovereign to let her have it to herself for a couple of hours whilst I went out and saw what I could do.”

Then Mallard told Grainger of “Magnetic Villa.”

“Let us go and see this refined family,” he said with a laugh. “I don't know them, but from what my sub tells me, I daresay Miss Grainger could manage with them for a week. I know the house, which has two advantages: it is large, and is away from this noisy, dirty, dusty, and sinful town.”

“Very well,” said Grainger» as he took out his pipe, “will three o'clock suit? My sister might come.”

“Of course. Now tell me about Chinkie's Flat. Any fresh news?”

“Nothing fresh; same old thing.”

“'Same old thing!'” and Mallard spread out his arms yearningly and rolled his eyes towards the ceiling. “Just listen to the man, O ye gods! 'The same old thing!' That means you are making a fortune hand over fist, you and Jimmy Ah San.”

“We are certainly making a lot of money, Mallard,” replied Grainger quietly, as he lit his pipe and crossed his strong, sun-tanned hands over his knee. “My own whack, so far, out of Chinkie's Flat, has come to more than £16,000.”

“Don't say 'whack,' Grainger; it's vulgar. Say 'My own emolument, derived in less than one year from the auriferous wealth of Chinkie's Flat, amounts to £16,000.' You'll be going to London soon, and floating the property for a million, and—”

Grainger, who knew the man well, and had a sincere liking and respect for him, laughed again, though his face flushed. “You know me better than that, Mallard; I'm not the man to do that sort of thing. I could float the concern and make perhaps a hundred thousand or so out of it if I was blackguard enough to do it. But, thank God, I've never done anything dirty in my life, and never will.”

“Don't mind my idiotic attempt at a joke, Grainger,” and Mallard pat ont his hand. “I know you are the straightest man that ever lived. But I did really think that you would be going off to England soon, and that we—I mean the other real friends beside myself you have made in this God-forsaken colony—would know you no more except by reading of your 'movements' in London.”

“No, Mallard, Australia is my home. I know nothing of England, for I left there when I was a child. As I told you, my poor father was one of the biggest sheep men in Victoria, and died soon after the bank foreclosed on him. The old station, which he named 'Melinda Downs,' after my mother, who has the good old-fashioned name of Melinda, has gone through a lot of vicissitudes since then; but a few weeks ago my agent in Sydney bought it for £10,000, and now my mother and sisters are going back there.”

“And yourself?”

“Oh, a year or two more—perhaps three or four; and then, when Chinkie's Flat is worked out, I too, will go south to the old home.”

Mallard sighed, and then, taking a cigar, lit it, and the two men smoked together in silence for a few minutes.

“Mallard!”

“Yes, old man.”

“This continual newspaper grind is pretty tough, isn't it?”

“Yes, it is. But thanks to you—by putting me on to the 'Day Dawn' Reef at Chinkie's Flat—I've made a thousand or two and can chuck it at any time.”

“Don't say 'chuck.' It's vulgar; and the editor of the 'leading journal in North Queensland' must not be vulgar,” and he smiled.

“Ah, Grainger my boy, you have been a good friend to me!”

“It's the other way about, Mallard. You were the only man in the whole colony of Queensland who stood to me when I began to employ Chinese labour. That ruffian, Peter Finnerty, said in the House, only two months ago, that I deserved to be shot.”

“Well, you stuck to your guns, and I to mine. Fortunately the Champion is my own 'rag,' and not owned by a company. I stuck to you as a matter of principle.”

“And lost heavily by it.”

“For six months or so. A lot of people withdrew their advertisements; but they were a bit surprised when at the end of that time they came back to me, and I refused to insert their ads. at any price. I consider that you not only did wisely, but right, in employing the Chinamen. Are they going on satisfactorily?”

“Very; they do work for me at twenty-five shillings a week that white men would not do at all—no matter what you offered them: emptying sludge-pits, building dams, etc.”

“Exactly! And now all the people who rose up and howled at you for employing Chinamen, and the Champion for backing you up, are shouting themselves hoarse in your praise. And the revival of Chinkie's Flat, and the new rushes all round about it, have added very materially to the wealth of this town.” After a little further conversation, Grainger went back to the Queen's Hotel, where Mallard was to call at three o'clock.

Myra Grainger, a small, slenderly-built girl of nineteen, looked up as he entered the sitting-room.

“Any success, Ted?”

“Here, look at this advertisement. Mallard knows the place, but not the people. He's coming here at three, and we'll all go and interview Mrs. Trappème—'which her real name is Trappem,' I believe.”

“I shall be glad to see Mr. Mallard again. I like him—in fact, I liked him before I ever saw him for the way in which he fought for you.”

“And I'm strongly of the opinion that Mr. Thomas Mallard has a very strong liking for Miss Myra Grainger.”

“Then I like him still more for that.”

Grainger patted his sister's cheek. “He is a good fellow, Myra. I think he will ask you to marry him.”

“I certainly expect it, Ted.”

CHAPTER VII ~ SHEILA CAROLAN

Although Mrs. Trappème had been so short a time in Townsville, she had contrived to learn a very good deal, not only about people in the town itself, but in the surrounding districts, and knew that Grainger was a wealthy mine-owner, had a sister staying with him on a visit—and was a bachelor. She also knew that Mallard was the editor of the Champion, and was likewise a bachelor—in fact, she had acquired pretty well all the information that could be acquired; her informant being the talkative, scandal-mongering wife of the Episcopalian curate.

She was therefore highly elated when at four o'clock in the afternoon Miss Grainger and her brother, and Mallard, after a brief inspection of the rooms—which were really handsomely furnished—took three of the largest and a private sitting-room, at an exorbitant figure, for a week, and promised to be at the Villa that evening for dinner.

“He's immensely rich, Juliette,” she said to her daughter (she was speaking of Grainger after he had gone), “and you must do your best, your very best. Wear something very simple, as it is the first evening; and be particularly nice to his sister—I'm sure he's very fond of her. She'll only be here a week, but he and Mr. Mallard will probably be here a month. So now you have an excellent chance. Don't throw it away by making a fool of yourself.”

Juliette (who had been christened Julia, and called “Judy” for thirty-two years of her life) set her thin lips and then replied acidly—

“It's all very well for you to talk, but whenever I did have a chance—which was not often—you spoilt it by your interference. And if you allow Jimmy to sit at the same table with us to-night he'll simply disgust these new people. When you call him 'Mordaunt' the hideous little wretch grins; and he grins too when you call me 'Juliette' and Lizzie 'Lilla.'”

Mrs. Trappème's fat face scowled at her daughter, and she was about to make an angry retort when the frontdoor bell rang.

“A lady wants to see yez, ma'am,” said the “new chum” Irish housemaid, who had answered the door.

“Did you show her into the reception room, Mary?”

“Sure, an' is it the wee room wid the sthuffed burd in the fireplace, or is it the wan beyant wid the grane carpet on de flore; becos' I'm after puttin' her in the wan wid the sthuffed burd? Anny way it's a lady she is, sure enough; an' it's little she'll moind where she do be waitin' on yez.”

“Did she send in her card, Mary?”

“Did she sind in her what?”

“Her card, you stupid girl.”

“Don't you be after miscallin' me, ma'am. Sure I can get forty shillings a wake annywhere an' not be insulted by anny wan, instead av thirty here, which I do be thinkin' is not the place to shuit me”—and the indignant daughter of the Emerald Isle, a fresh-complexioned, handsome young woman, tossed her pretty head and marched out.

So Mrs. Trappème went into the room “wid the sthuffed burd in it,” and there rose to meet her a fair-haired girl of about eighteen, with long-lashed, dark-grey eyes, and a somewhat worn and drawn expression about her small mouth, as if she were both mentally and physically tired. Her dress was of the simplest—a neatly fitting, dark-blue, tailor-made gown.

“I saw your advertisement in the Champion this morning,” she said, “and called to ascertain your terms.” Mrs. Trappème's big, protruding, and offensive pale-blue eyes stared at and took in the girl's modest attire and her quiet demeanour as a shark looks at an unsuspecting or disabled fish which cannot escape its maws.

“Please sit down,” she said with a mingled ponderous condescension and affability. “I did not advertise. I merely notified in the Champion that I would receive paying guests. But my terms are very exclusive.” “What are they?”

“Five guineas a week exclusive of extras, which, in this place, amount to quite a guinea more. You could not afford that, I suppose?”

The dark-grey eyes flashed, and then looked steadily at those of the fishy blue.

“Your terms are certainly very high, but I have no option. I find it impossible to get accommodation in Townsville. I only arrived from Sydney this morning in the Corea, and as I am very tired, I should like to rest in an hour or so—as soon as you can conveniently let me have my room,” and taking out her purse she placed a £5 note, a sovereign, and six shillings on the table.

“Will you allow me to pay you in advance?” she said, with a tinge of sarcasm in her clear voice. “I will send my luggage up presently.”

Mrs. Trappème at once became most affable. She had noticed that the purse the girl had produced was literally stuffed with new £5 notes.

“May I send for it?” she said beamingly, “and will you not stay and go to your room now?”

“No, thank you,” was the cold reply, “I have some business to attend to first. Can you tell me where Mr. Mallard, the editor of the Champion, lives? I know where the office is, but as it is a morning paper, I should not be likely to find him there at this early hour.”

Mrs. Trappème was at once devoured with curiosity. “How very extraordinary! Mr. Mallard was here only half an hour ago with a Mr. Grainger and Miss Grainger. They are coming here to stay for a few weeks.”

The girl's fair face lit up. “Oh, indeed! I am sorry I was not here, as I particularly wish to see Mr. Grainger also. I had no idea that he was in Townsville, and was calling on Mr. Mallard—who, I know, is a friend of his—to ascertain when he was likely to be in town.”

“They will all be here for dinner, Miss——”

“My name is Carolan,” and taking out her cardcase she handed Mrs. Trappème a card on which was inscribed, “Miss Sheila Carolan.”

“Then Mr. Grainger is a friend of yours?” said Mrs. Trappème inquisitively, thinking of the poor chance Juliette would have with such a Richmond in the field as Miss Sheila Carolan.

“No, I have never even seen him,” said the girl stiffly, and then she rose.

“Then you will send for my luggage, Mrs. Trappème?”

“With pleasure, Miss Carolan. But will you not look at your room, and join my daughter and myself in our afternoon tea?”

“No, thank you, I think I shall first try and see either Mr. Mallard or Mr. Grainger. Do you know where Mr. Mallard lives?”

“At the Royal Hotel in Flinders Street. My daughter Lilla will be delighted to show you the way.”

But Miss Sheila Carolan was stubborn, and declined the kind offer, and Mrs. Trappème, whose curiosity was now at such a pitch that she was beginning to perspire, saw her visitor depart, and then called for Juliette.

“I wonder who she is and what she wants to see Mr. Grainger for?” she said excitedly, as she mopped her florid face: “doesn't know him, and yet wants to see him particularly. There is something mysterious about her.”

“What is she like?” asked Miss Trappème eagerly. “I didn't see her face, but her clothes are all right, I can tell you.” (She knew all about clothes, having been a forewoman in a Sydney drapery establishment for many years.)

“Oh, a little, common-looking thing, but uppish. I wonder what on earth she does want to see Mr. Grainger for?”

Half an hour later, when Miss Carolan's luggage arrived, it was duly inspected and criticised by the whole Trappème family. Each trunk bore a painted address: “Miss Carolan, Minerva Downs, Dalrymple, North Queensland.”

“Now where in the world is Minerva Downs?” said Mrs. Trappème, “and why on earth is she going there? And her name too—Carolan—Sheila Carolan! I suppose she's a Jewess.”

“Indade, an' it's not that she is, ma'am, whatever it manes,” indignantly broke in Mary, who had helped to carry in the luggage, and now stood erect with flaming face and angry eyes. “Sure an' I tould yez she was a lady, an' anny wan cud see she was a lady, an' Carolan is wan av the best names in Ireland—indade it is.”

“You may leave the room, Mary,” said Miss Trappème loftily.

“Lave the room, is it, miss? Widout maning anny disrespect to yez, I might as well be telling yez that I'm ready to lave the place intirely, an' so is the cook an' stableman, an' the gardener. Sure none av us—having been used to the gintry—want to sthay in a place where we do be getting talked at all day.”

The prospect of all her servants leaving simultaneously was too awful for Mrs. Trappème to contemplate. So she capitulated.

“Don't be so hasty, Mary. I suppose, then, that Miss Carolan is an Irishwoman?”

“She is that, indade. Sore an' her swate face toold me so before she spoke to me at all, at all.”

“Then you must look after her wants yery carefully, Mary. She will only be here for a few weeks.”

Mary's angry eyes softened. “I will that ma'am. Sure she's a sweet young lady wid the best blood in her, I'm thinkin'.”

Miss Trappème sniffed.

CHAPTER VIII ~ MYRA AND SHEILA

There was nothing mysterious about Sheila Carolan; her story was a very simple one. Her parents were both dead, and she had no relatives, with the exception of an aunt, and with her she had lived for the last five years. The two, however, did not agree very well, and Sheila being of a very independent spirit, and possessing a few hundred pounds of her own, frankly told her relative that she intended to make her own way in the world. There was living in North Queensland a former great friend of her mother's—a Mrs. Farrow, whose husband was the owner of a large cattle station near Dalrymple—and to her she wrote asking her if she could help her to obtain a situation as a governess. Six weeks later she received a warmly worded and almost affectionate letter.

With the letter was enclosed a cheque for £50 on a Sydney bank.

As the girl descended Melton Hill into hot, dusty, and noisy Flinders Street, she smiled to herself as she thought how very much she had stimulated the curiosity of Mrs. Trappème—to whom she had, almost unconsciously, taken an instinctive dislike.

As she entered the crowded vestibule of the Royal Hotel, a group of men—diggers, sugar planters, storekeepers, bankers, ship captains, and policemen, who were all laughing hilariously at some story which was being told by one of their number—at once made a lane for her to approach the office, for ladies—especially young and pretty ladies—were few in comparison to the men in North Queensland in those days, and a murmured whisper of admiration was quite audible to her as she made her inquiry of the clerk.

“No; Mr. Mallard is with Mr. and, Miss Grainger at the 'Queen's.' He left here a few minutes ago.”

“May I show you the way, miss?” said a huge bearded man, who, booted and spurred, took off his hat to her in an awkward manner. “I'm Dick Scott, one of Mr. Grainger's men.”

“Thank you,” replied Sheila, “it is very kind of you,” and, escorted by the burly digger, she went out into the street again.

“Are you Miss Caroline, ma'am?” said her guide to her respectfully, as he tried to shorten his lengthy strides.

“Yes, my name is Carolan,” she replied, trying to hide a smile.

“Thought so, ma'am. I heerd the boss a-tellin' Miss Grainger as you would be a-comin' to Chinkie's on yer way up ter Minervy Downs. Here's the 'Queen's,' miss, an' there's the boss and his sister and Mr. Mallard on the verandah there havin' a cooler,” and then, to her amusement and Grainger's astonishment, Mr. Dick Scott introduced her.

“This is Miss Caroline, boss. I picked her up at the 'Royal,'” and then, without another word, he marched off again with a proud consciousness of having “done the perlite thing.”

“I am Sheila Carolan, Mr. Grainger. I was at the 'Royal 'asking for Mr. Mallard when Mr. Scott kindly brought me here.”

“I am delighted to meet you, Miss Carolan,” said Grainger, who had risen and extended his hand. “I had not the slightest idea you had arrived.” And then he introduced her to his sister and Mallard.

“Now, Miss Carolan, please let me give you a glass of this—it is simply lovely and cold,” said Myra, pouring some champagne into a glass with some crashed ice in it. “My brother is the proad possessor of a big but rapidly diminishing lump of ice, which was sent to him by the captain of the Corea just now.”

“Thank you, Miss Grainger. I really am very thirsty. I have had quite a lot of walking about to-day. I have a letter to you, Mr. Mallard, from Mrs. Farrow,” and she handed the missive to him.

“I am so very sorry I did not know of your arrival, Miss Carolan,” said Mallard. “I would have met you on board, but, as a matter of fact, I did not expect you in the Corea, as she is a very slow boat.”

“I was anxious to get to Mrs. Farrow,” Sheila explained, “and so took the first steamer.”

“Where are you staying, Miss Carolan?” asked Myra.

“Oh, I've been very fortunate. I have actually secured a room at 'Magnetic Villa,' on Melton Hill; in fact I went there just after you had left.”

Myra clapped her hands with delight. “Oh, how lovely! I shall be there for a week, and my brother and Mr. Mallard are staying there as well.”

“So Mrs. Lee Trappème informed me,” said Sheila with a bright smile.

Mallard—an irrepressible joker and mimic—at once threw back his head, crossed his hands over his chest, and bowed in such an exact imitation of Mrs. Trappème that a burst of laughter followed.

“Now you two boys can run away and play marbles for a while, as Miss Carolan and I want to have a little talk before we go to the 'refined family circle' for dinner,” said Myra to her brother. “It is now six o'clock; our luggage has gone up, and so, if you will come back for us in half an hour, we will let you escort us there—to the envy of all the male population of this horrid, dusty, noisy town.”

“Very well,” said Grainger with a laugh, “Mallard and I will contrive to exist until then,” and the two men went off into the billiard-room.

“Now, Miss Carolan,” said the lively Myra, as she opened the door of the sitting-room and carried in the table on which were the glasses, champagne bottle, and ice, “we'll put these inside first. The sight of that ice will make every man who may happen to see it and who knows Ted come and introduce himself to me. Oh, this is a very funny country! I'm afraid it rather shocked you to see me drinking champagne on an hotel verandah in full view of passers-by. But, really, the whole town is excited—it has gold-fever on the brain—and then all the men are so nice, although their free and easy ways used to astonish me considerably at first. But diggers especially are such manly men—-you know what I mean.”

“Oh, quite. I know I shall like North Queensland. There were quite a number of diggers on board the Carea, and one night we held a concert in the saloon and I sang 'The Kerry Dance'—I'm an Irishwoman—and next morning a big man named O'Hagan, one of the steerage passengers, came up and asked me if I would 'moind acceptin' a wee bit av a stone,' and he handed me a lovely specimen of quartz with quite two ounces of gold in it. He told me he had found it on the Shotover River, in New Zealand. I didn't know what to say or do at first, and then he paid me such a compliment that I fairly tingled all over with vanity. 'Sure an' ye'll take the wee bit av a stone from me, miss,' he said. 'I'm a Kerry man meself, an' when I heard yez singin' “The Kerry Dance,” meself and half a dozen more men from the oold sod felt that if ye were a man we'd have carried yez around the deck in a chair.”

“How nice of him!” said Myra; “but they are all like that. Nearly every one of my brother's men at Chinkie's Flat gave me something in the way of gold specimens when I left there.”

“Then,” resumed Sheila, “in the afternoon all the steerage passengers sent me and the captain what they call a 'round robin,' and asked if he would let them have a concert in the steerage, and if I would sing. And we did have it—on the deck—and I had to sing that particular song three times.”

“I wish I had been there! Do you know, Miss Carolan, that that big man who brought you here—Dick Scott—rough and uneducated as he is, is a gentleman. On our way down from Chinkie's Flat we had to swim our horses across the Ross River, which was in flood. When we reached the other side I was, of course, wet through, and my hair had come down, and I looked like a half-drowned cat, I suppose. There is a public-house on this side of the Ross, and we went there at once to change our clothes, which were in canvas saddle bags on a pack-horse, and came over dry. The public-house was full of people, among whom were three commercial travellers, who were doing what is called 'painting the place red'—they were all half-intoxicated. As I came in wet and dripping they leered at me, and one of them said, 'Look at the sweet little ducky—poor little darling—with her pitty ickle facey-wacey all wet and coldy-woldy.' Ted was not near me at the time, but Scott heard, and ten minutes later, as I was changing my clothes, I heard a dreadful noise, and the most awful language, and then a lot of cheering. I dressed as quickly as possible and went out into the dining-room, and there on the floor were the three commercial travellers. Their faces looked simply dreadful, smothered in blood, and I felt quite sick. At the other end of the room were a lot of men, miners and stockmen, who were surrounding Dick Scott, slapping him on the back, and imploring him to drink with them. It seems that as soon as I had gone to my room to change, the valiant Dick had told them that the 'drummers' had insulted Mr. Grainger's sister, and in a few minutes the room was cleared and a ring formed, and Dick actually did what the landlord termed 'smashed up the whole three in five minutes.'”

“I'm sure I shall like Mr. Dick Scott,” said Sheila. “I had to try hard and not laugh when he pointed to you, and said in his big, deep voice, 'There they are, having a “cooler”'—I thought at first he meant you were cooling yourselves.”

“Any drink is called a 'cooler,' “explained Myra; “but, oh dear, how I do chatter! The fact is, I'm so wildly excited, and want to talk so much that I can't talk fast enough. But I must first of all tell you this—I'm really most sincerely glad to meet you, for I feel as if I knew you well. Mrs. Farrow—I spent a week at Minerva Downs—told me you were coming, and that she was longing to see you. I am sure you will be very, very happy with her. She is the most lovable, sweet woman in the world, and when she spoke of your mother her eyes filled with tears. And the children are simply splendid. I suppose I am unduly fond of them because they made so much of me, and think that my brother is the finest rider in the world—'and he is that, indade'—isn't that Irish?”

“Yes,” said Sheila smilingly, “that is Irish; and I am sure I shall be very happy there.”

Myra Grainger, who was certainly, as she had said, wildly excited, suddenly moved her chair close to that on which Sheila sat.

“Miss Carolan, I'm sure that you and I will always be great 'chums'—as they say here in North Queensland—and I'm just dying to tell you of something. Within this last hour I have become engaged to Mr. Mallard! Even Ted doesn't know it yet. Oh, I have heaps and heaps of things to tell you. Can't we have a real, nice long talk to-night?”

“Indeed we can,” said Sheila, looking into the girl's bright, happy face.

CHAPTER IX ~ DINNER WITH “THE REFINED FAMILY”

Somewhat to the annoyance of Grainger and his friends, they found on their arrival at “Magnetic Villa” that there were several other visitors there who had apparently come to dine. Whether they were personal friends of Mrs. Trappème or not, or were “paying guests” like themselves, they could not at first discover.

“Dinner will be ready at eight o'clock, Miss Grainger,” said Mrs. Trappème sweetly to Myra, who with Sheila had been shown into their private sitting-room; and then she added quickly, as she heard a footstep in the passage, “You have not met my daughter. Come, Juliette, dear—Miss Grainger, my eldest daughter; Miss Carolan, Miss Trappème.”

The two girls bowed rather coldly to Miss Trappème, who, after the usual commonplaces, asked Miss Grainger if she were not tired.

“Very—and so is Miss Carolan. We shall be glad of an hour's rest before dinner.”

The hint was unmistakable, and Miss Trappème smiled herself out, inwardly raging at what she told her mother was Sheila's forwardness in so soon thrusting herself upon Miss Grainger.

As she went out, Sheila looked at Myra and laughed. “We are certainly meant to be treated as members of the family, whether we like it or not. I wonder if the other people we saw are as pushful as 'Mamma' and 'Juliette.'”

“I trust not; that would be awful—even for a week.”

Mallard was in Grainger's room, sprawled out on the bed, talking to him and smoking, whilst the latter was opening a leather trunk which contained some bottles of whisky and soda water, and a small box which held the remains of the ice.

“We can't let this 'melt on as,' as the Irish would say, Mallard,” and he placed it in the toilet basin in its covering of blanket. “Now move your lazy self and break a piece off with your knife, whilst I open this bottle of Kinahan's and some soda. I trust the cultured family will not object to the sound of a cork popping at seven o'clock.”

“Not they,” said Mallard, as he rose; “they would not mind if you took the whisky to the table and drank it out of the bottle. Oh, I can gauge the old dame pretty well, I think; avarice is writ large in her face, and she'll squeeze us all she can. She told me in a mysterious aside that the butler kept all the very best wines and liquor obtainable. I thanked her, and said I usually provided my own. She didn't like it a bit; but I'm not going to pay her a sovereign for a bottle of whisky or Hennessey when I can get a case of either for a five-pound note. Oh!” he added disgustedly, “they're all alike.”

“Well, don't worry, old man,” said his friend philosophically, as he handed him a glass; “there, take this. I wonder if Mrs. Trap—Trapper, or whatever her name is, thinks we are going to dress for dinner. Neither my sister nor Miss Carolan will, and I'm sure I'm not going to establish a bad precedent.”

“Same here. If other people like to waste time dressing for dinner, let them; this town is altogether too new and thriving a place for busy men like ourselves to worry about evening dress. By the way, Grainger, I've some news for you that I trust will give you pleasure: your sister has promised to marry me next year.”

Grainger grasped his friend's hand. “I'm glad, very glad, old man. I was wondering what made her so unusually bright this afternoon; but she has kept it dark.”

“Hasn't had a chance to tell you yet. I only asked her a couple of hours ago.”

“Well, let us go and see her and Miss Carolan before dinner. I can hear them talking in the sitting-room. Hallo! who is that little fellow out there crossing the lawn with the younger Miss Trappème. He's in full fig..”

Mallard looked out of the window and saw a very diminutive man in evening dress.

“Oh, that's little Assheton, the new manager for the Australian Insurance Company. He's just out from England. He's a fearfully conceited ape, but a smart fellow at the insurance business. Great fun at the 'Queen's' the other day with him. He came in, dressed in frock coat, tall hat, and carrying a thick, curly stick as big as himself. Of course every one smiled, and he took it badly—couldn't see what there was to laugh at; and when old Charteris, the Commissioner, asked him how much he would 'take for the hat,' he put his monocle up and said freezingly, 'Sir, I do not know you.' That made us simply howl, and then, when we had subsided a bit, Morgan the barrister, who is here on circuit with Judge Cooper, said in that fanny, deep, rumbling voice of his—

“'Are you, sir, one of the—ah—ah—circus company which—ah—arrived to-day?'

“The poor little beggar was furious, lost his temper, and called us a lot of ill-mannered, vulgar fellows, and then some one or other whipped off the offending hat, threw it into the street, and made a cockshy of it.

“'I'll have satisfaction for this outrage!' he piped. 'Landlord, send for a policeman. I'll give all these men in charge. Your house is very disorderly. Do you know who I am?'

“'No, nor do I care,' said old Cramp, down whose cheeks the tears were running; 'but if you'll come here like that every day, I'll give you a sovereign, and we'll have the hat. Oh, you're better than any circus I ever saw. Oh, oh, oh!' and he went off into another fit.

“The poor little man looked at us in a dazed sort of a way—thought us lunatics, and then when old Char-tens asked him not to mind a bit of miners' horseplay, but to sit down and have some fizz, he called him 'an audacious ruffian,' and shrieked out—

“'I am Mr. B. D. Assheton—the manager of the Australian Insurance Company. Do you possibly imagine I would drink with a person like you?'”

Grainger laughed: “It must have been great fun.”

“Rather—but the cream of it is to come yet. He rushed oat into Flinders Street, found Sergeant Doyle and a policeman, and came back panting and furious, and pointing, to Charteris, told them to take him in charge. Doyle looked at us blankly, saw we were nearly dead with laughing, and then took Assheton aside, and said in his beautiful brogue—

“'Me little mahn, it's drinkin' ye've been. Do yez want me to arrest the Po-liss Magisthrate himsilf? Who are ye at all, at all? Ye'd betther be after goin' home and lyin' down, or I'll lock ye up for making a dishturbance. Do ye moind me now?'”

Grainger could no longer control his laughter, and in the midst of it, Myra tapped vigorously at the door, He rose and opened it.

“Whatever is all this noise about, Ted? You two great boys!”

“Oh, take Mallard away, Myra, for heaven's sake!”

A little before eight o'clock the deafening clamour of a gong announced dinner, and the company filed in. Mrs. Trappème and the Misses Trappème were in “very much evening dress” as Sheila murmured to Myra, and they seemed somewhat surprised that neither Miss Grainger nor Miss Carolan had donned anything more unusual than perfectly-made dainty gowns of cool white Indian muslin. Grainger and Mallard wore the usual white duck suits (the most suitable and favoured dress for a climate like that of torrid North Queensland), and Sheila could not but admire their big well-set-up figures—both were “six feet men”—and contrast their handsome, bronzed and bearded faces with the insignificant appearance of Assheton and another gentleman in evening dress—a delicate but exceedingly gentlemanly young Scotsman. Of course there were more introductions—all of which were duly and unnecessarily carried out by Mrs. Trappème. Others of that lady's guests were the local Episcopalian clergyman and his wife—the former was a placid, dreamy-looking, mild creature, with soft, kindly eyes. He smiled at everybody, was evidently in abject terror of his wife—a hard-featured lady about ten years his senior, with high cheek-bones and an exceedingly corrugated neck and shoulders. She eyed Myra and Sheila with cold dissatisfaction, and after dinner had once begun, devoted herself to the task of extracting information from the latter regarding her future movements. She had already discussed her with Mrs. Trappème, and had informed her hostess that she had “suspicions” about a girl who affected mystery in the slightest degree, and who could afford to pay six guineas a week for simple board and lodging.

“Quite so, Mrs. Wooler,” Mrs. Trappème had assented; “I must confess it doesn't look quite right. Even Juliette thinks it very strange for her to be so reticent as to who she is and where she is going. Of course I could have refused to receive her, and am now rather sorry I did not. I understood from her that Mr. Grainger was an utter stranger to her—and I was quite surprised to see them all come in together as if they had known each other for years. Not quite correct, I think.”

“Mr. Grainger is very rich,” said the clergyman's wife meditatively.

“Very,” said her friend, who knew that Mrs. Wooler meant to do a little begging (for church purposes) as soon as opportunity offered.

“It would be a pity for him to be involved with such a—a forward-looking young person,” she said charitably.

But for the first quarter of an hour she had no opportunity of satisfying her curiosity, for Sheila was quite hungry enough not to waste too much time in conversation. At last, however, a chance came, when Mr. Assheton said in his mincing voice—

“I believe, Miss Carolan, that like me, you are quite a new arrival in this country.”

“Oh, dear no! I have lived here ever since I was two years old.”

“Heah! in Townsville?”

“I meant Australia,” Sheila observed placidly.

“Then you are not an Australian born, Miss Carolan?” put in Mrs. Wooler with a peculiarly irritating condescension of manner and surprised tone, as if she meant to say, “I am sure you are—you certainly are not lady-like enough to be an English girl.”

“No, I am not,” was the reply. “Do you think you will like Queensland, Mr. Assheton?”

“I really have as yet formed no definite impression. Possibly I may in the end contrive to like it.”

“Do. It would be a great pity for the country if you did not,” said Sheila gravely, without moving an eyelid.

“Do you purpose making a long stay in Queensland, Miss Carolan?” pursued Mrs. Wooler.

“A very long one, perhaps—perhaps on the other hand a very short one. Or it may be that I may adopt a middle course, and do neither.”

Grainger, who was opposite, heard her, and as she looked across at him, he saw that she was “playing” her questioner and quite enjoying it.

Never for one moment did the clergyman's wife dream that Sheila meant to be anything else but evasive, so she followed up. To her mind it was absolutely incredible that any woman would dare to snub her—Mrs. Wooler—daughter of a dean, and possessing an uncle who had on several occasions been spoken of by the Bishop of Dullington as his probable successor; such a thing was impossible!

“I presume, however, that your stay in Townsville itself will be short, Miss Carolan? You will find it a very expensive place—especially if you have no friends to whom you can go.”

Sheila's face flushed. Her blood was getting up, and Myra looked at her nervously.

“Is there no 'Girls' Friendly Society,' 'Young Women's Christian Association,' or other kindred institution, where I could 'be taken in and done for'?” she asked sweetly.

“Not as yet; but I am thinking of taking steps to found a Girls' Friendly Society. Such an institution will soon be a necessity in a growing place like this.”

“How nice it would be for me to go there instead of staying at—at a boarding house!”

Juliette Trappème's sallow face flushed with rage, and Mrs. Trappème, who saw that something was occurring, spoke loudly to Mr. Wooler, who answered in his usual soft voice. But Mallard, who was seated next to Miss Lilla Trappème, shot Sheila an encouraging glance.

“Quite so,” went on Mrs. Wooler. “I disapprove most strongly of any young woman incurring risks that can be avoided.”

“What risks?” and Sheila turned and looked steadily at Mrs. Wooler.

The sharp query somewhat upset the inquisitive lady, who hardly knew what she meant herself.

“Oh, the risks of getting into debt—living beyond one's means—and things like that.”

“Oh, I see, madam,” and Sheila bowed gravely, although the danger signals were showing now on her cheeks. Then she added very clearly and distinctly, “That would be most dreadful to happen to any one, would it not, Mr. Assheton?”

“Oh, howwible—for a lady.”

“But,” she went on—and as she spoke she gazed so intently into Mrs. Wooler's face that every one at the table saw her change colour—“but I am sure, Mrs. Wooler, that no girl could possibly come to such a sad condition while you are in Townsville, to give her the benefit of your years, your advice, and your experience—even though that advice was thrust upon her in a manner that I believe might possibly cause well-deserved resentment,” and then, with a scornful smile still on her lips, she turned to Mr. Assheton and asked him sweetly if he did not “think it was beginning to be very warm so early in the year?”

“By heavens!” mattered Mallard to Myra, “she has done the parson woman good. Look at her face. It's unpleasant to look at.”

Mrs. Wooler's features were a study. Unable to speak, and her hands trembling with rage, she gave the girl one glance of hatred, and then tried to eat; and Viveash, who had the sense to do so, at once began telling her some idiotic and pointless story about himself when he sang in a cathedral choir until his voice “failed him.”

Just then a long ring was heard at the front door, and the butler presently came to Mallard, and said—

“One of the reporters, sir, from the Champion wishes to see you. Most important, sir, he says. Will you please see him at once?”

Making his excuses, Mallard left the dining-room and went into one of the sitting-rooms, where the reporter was awaiting him.