and the investments turn out as they ought, we might put a manager here and take a run home."
He had been discussing it with Mrs. Allanby the night before. Ina said nothing.
Lord Horace was very full of his corroboree. "I don't know what you fellows of the Executive will do to me," he said to Blake, who with the rest of the Dell party was lounging in the verandah of the Humpey. "I've been doing my best to get up a war among the natives. There's three tribes of them," he went on to explain—"the Moongan and the Baròlin and the Durundur, and they are all at loggerheads with each other. It's quite a romantic affair, a sort of Paris and Helen and Siege of Troy business."
"Oh, do tell us," murmured Mrs. Allanby.
"Is he cramming me? " observed Lady Waveryng. "Remember I am going to write a book. Let us hear the Blacks' Iliad, Horace."
"This is it. Paris—otherwise Luya Tommy—ran away with Helen, commonly called Bean Tree Bessy. Paris is a Moongan. Helen is of the Baròlins. Helen has a husband who is of the Durundur tribe, and he is a chief also, and not by any means of a complaisant turn of mind. He resents the theft of his wife, or else his terms for the transfer are too high to be within Paris Tommy's means. Menelaus Tommy—they are both Tommies—is disposed for battle, and the Durundurs are a mighty tribe, so that the only chance for Paris and Helen, there being no Troy convenient, is in the Baròlins and the Moongans joining forces and fighting the Durundurs, and this is what I have been trying to compass—all for the benefit of your book of travels, Em, so I think it is rather hard of you to throw doubts on my veracity."
"I have promised you the proceeds of that book anyhow, Horace," put in Lady Waveryng "so that you are an interested party."
"Oh! then that accounts for Horace's zeal, and now I understand why he was so anxious to soothe the free-selectors and the cedar-cutters, who object to have the Blacks en-
