of course,' he was saying, 'there are two parties?'
'My word, there are!' returned the Bride.
'And do you call them Whig and Tory?'
'I don't think it'—doubtfully.
'Conservative and Liberal, perhaps?'
'Not that I know of.'
'Yet you say you have two parties'
'Of course we have, same as you,' broke in the Bride, who would brook anything rather than the implied inferiority of Australia in the most trivial respect. 'But all ever I heard 'em called was the squatters' candidate and the selectors' man!'
'And your men, I suppose, voted for the squatters' candidate?'
'I should rather hope so!' said Mrs Alfred, with severe emphasis. 'Even Daft Larry—who's both deaf and mad—had sense enough to give us his vote!'
Mr Travers, though astonished at her tone, said nothing at the moment; but Granville asked from his corner:—
'What if they didn't, Gladys?'
The Bride was seized with a sudden fit of uncontrollable mirth. Some reminiscence evidently tickled her.
'There was one man that we knew of
