She's AI 'erself, but she's got a mother. . . . By Job, Dick, if I thought Tilly 'ud ever get like that . . . and they're exactly the same build, too."

It would certainly be well for him to inspect Purdy's flame, thought Mahony. Especially since the anecdote told did not bear out the good impression left by the letter -- went far, indeed, to efface it. Still, he was loath to extend his absence by spending a night at Geelong, where, a, it came out, the lady lived; and he replied evasively that it must depend on the speed with which he could put through his business in Melbourne.

Purdy was silent for a time. Then, with a side-glance at his companion, he volunteered: "I say, Dick, I know some one who'd suit you."

"The deuce you do!" said Mahony, and burst out laughing. "Miss Tilly's sister, no doubt?"

"No, no -- not her. Jinn's all right, but she's not your sort. But they've got a girl living with 'em -- a sort o' poor relation, or something -- and she's a horse of quite another colour. -- I say, old man, serious now, have you never thought o' gettin' spliced?"

Again Mahony laughed. At his companion's words there descended to him, once more, from some shadowy distance, some pure height, the rose-tinted vision of the wife-to-be which haunts every man's youth. And, in ludicrous juxtaposition, he saw the women, the only women he had encountered since coming to the colony: the hardworking, careworn wives of diggers; the harridans, sluts and prostitutes who made up the balance.

He declined to be drawn. "Is it old Moll Flannigan or one of her darlints you'd be wishing me luck to, ye spalpeen?"

"Man, don't I say I've found the wife for you?" Purdy was not jesting, and did not join in the fresh salvo of laughter with which Mahony greeted his words. "Oh, blow it, Dick, you're too fastidious -- too damned particular! Say what you like, there's good in all of 'em -- even in old Mother Flannigan 'erself -- and 'specially when she's got a drop inside 'er. Fuddle old Moll a bit, and she'd give you the very shift off her back. -- Don't I thank the Lord, that's all, I'm not built like you! Why, the woman isn't born I can't get on with. All's fish that comes to my net. -- Oh, to be young, Dick, and to love the girls! To see their little waists,and their shoulders, and the dimples in their cheeks! See 'em put up their hands to their bonnets, and how their little feet peep out when the wind blows their petticoats against their legs!" and Purdy rose in his stirrups and stretched himself, in an excess of wellbeing.

"You young reprobate!"

"Bah! -- you! You've got water in your veins."

"Nothing of the sort! Set me among decent women and there's no company I enjoy more," declared Mahony.

"Fish-blood, fish-blood! -- Dick, it's my belief you were born old."

Mahony was still young enough to be nettled by doubts cast on his vitality. Purdy laughed in his sleeve. Aloud he said: "Well, look here, old man, I'll lay you a wager. I bet you you're not game, when you see that tulip I've been tellin' you about, to take her in your arms and kiss her.