on his heart of oak. Twelve foreign eyes were drawing beads on the dauntless captive, and twelve foreign fingers were pressing with increasing force on the triggers, when a majestic form appeared on the scene, and, with the motion of a woman launching a quilt across a wide bed, the British Consul draped the prisoner from head to foot in the Union Jack! That's all. The purpose of the lie is to convey the impression that it is a grand thing to be covered by the flag of Britain; but give me the forky pennon before referred to, and keep your Union Jack.
Cardinal Wolsey, you may remember, as a consequence of putting his trust in princes, found himself at last so badly treed that his robe and his integrity to heaven were all he dared now call his own. The effect was a peace above all earthly dignities. So with me, but in larger beatitude. Having my and my integrity to heaven, I found myself overflowing with the sunny self-reliance of the man that struck Buckley.
And before you join the hue-and-cry against the "barbarous incendiary" of the Express, just put yourself in my place, and you won't fail to realise what a profitable transaction it was to get a puris naturalibus lunatic clothed and in his right mind by the sacrifice of a mere eyesore on a farm. The old straw-stack was n't worth eighteen pence, but I would gladly have purchased its destruction with as many pounds—to be paid, say in nine monthly instalments. To be sure, it did n't belong to me; but then, neither did the splitters' bark. So there you are.
Crossing the dry place in the lagoon, I dived into the whipstick scrub and turned northward, intending to get across the river as soon as possible, and follow up the New South Wales side to my camp. I should have been—well, not exactly happy; having taken degrees in philosophy which place me above a state fit only for girls—I should have been without a ripple on my mirrored surface, but I was n't. Serenely sufficient as I felt, and fit for anything, some ingredient seemed lacking in my fennel-wreathed goblet. There was a vacant chair somewhere in my microcosm. I knew I was forgetting something—but how could that be, when, in the most restricted sense of the word, I had nothing to forget?
Thus musing, I had gone through half my provant; now I turned round to give the rest toAh! where was Pup? I knew he had followed me on my first journey up the drain, but I had n't seen him since, and had been too busy to notice his absence. He would probably be at the farmhouse. I must get my clothes changed, and look after him.
It was about a mile and a half northward to the river. Before reaching it, I saw, crossing the flat in the direction of the Victorian river road, a swagman whom I recognised in the distance as my friend Andy. In casual surprise—for, as you may remember, I had last seen him on the New South Wales side, eight or ten miles away, and going in the opposite direction—I went on without exchange of greeting. Shortly afterwards, I came plump upon Abraham, sitting on his horse, and talking to a young fellow with an axe on his shoulder. I respectfully swerved aside, not wishing, in this particular case, to come under the provisions of that unsound rule which judges a man by the clothes he wears.
Presently I became aware of the jingle of a horse-bell, and the smoke
