“Cripes!  What yous want?” he said.

“Are we far from anywhere?” asked Marcella, smiling at him.  He spat assiduously through a knothole in the boarding and looked from her to Louis.

“Depends on what you call far,” he said reflectively.  “There’s Gaynor’s about fifteen miles along, an’ Loose End nigh on thirty.  Where yous makin’ for, then?”

“I should say Loose End would suit us, by the sound of it,” said Louis with a laugh.  “But it isn’t much use starting out to-night.”

The stationmaster looked proprietorially towards the station and the hotel site.  There seemed room for tickets, and for the man who sold them—­if he were not a very large man.  There was not much hope for visitors.

“I’m running up a bosker hotel soon’s I can get a bit of weather-boarding and a few nails along,” he said hopefully.

“That doesn’t solve th-th-the immediate problem,” said Louis.

“Let’s sleep with half of us in the hotel and half on the platform,” said Marcella, delighted with the authentic lack of civilization.

“Be et up with h’ants,” the driver informed them.  “Look here, chum, if I was you I’d sleep in the train.  She don’t set off till between seven and eight to-morrow.”

They jumped at the idea, and the stationmaster, suddenly helpful, offered them the loan of his hut, his spirit lamp, his kerosene tins and his creek which was half a mile away among a few trees, low-growing, stunted blue gums.

“Have to have a wash,” the stationmaster told himself unhappily, and suggested the same course to the driver and guard as there was a lady to dinner.  Then he piloted Marcella and Louis to his hut.

It struck a homely note in several ways.  The name of Rockefeller came to them in the flattened out kerosene tins which, nailed to supports, formed the roof; boxes stencilled with the names of well-known proprietary English goods formed the walls.  Inside was a bed in shape of a frayed hammock; upturned boxes formed the chairs and there was an incongruous leather-topped, mahogany-legged writing-table.  A kerosene tin was the toilet apparatus:  another, cut in two, was used for boiling water.  Given a supply of kerosene tins in the Bush, one can make a villa and furnish it, down to cooking utensils and baby’s bath.

“Next time’s yous happen along, I’ll have a bonser hotel,” he said, and leading Marcella outside showed her, under the shade of a tree, a cache of dozens of eggs laid by the hens that ran wild, and buried in the earth; half a sheep wrapped in canvas, surrounded by great clouds of flies gave evidence that it had been long dead.

“Help yourself, missus.  We’ll all kip together.  You’ll find a bag o’ flour in the hammock,” said the stationmaster, and wandered off to get on with his hotel and his station.

Marcella looked at Louis and laughed.

“What luck!  Here’s a chance to experiment!  If we get to the station where they want a cook, to-morrow, I’ll be able to say I gave every satisfaction in my last place.”