‘You’ll find you’ll have to, my boy,’ was Michael’s easy comment, and he began calling for the waiter, with whom he at once resumed a sparkling conversation.

It was a downcast little man that followed him.  ’Of course he is very clever, but can I trust him in such a state?’ he asked himself.  And when they were once more in a hansom, he took heart of grace.

‘Don’t you think,’ he faltered, ’it would be wiser, considering all things, to put this business off?’

‘Put off till tomorrow what can be done today?’ cried Michael, with indignation.  ’Never heard of such a thing!  Cheer up, it’s all right, go in and win—­there’s a lion-hearted Pitman!’

At Cannon Street they enquired for Mr Brown’s piano, which had duly arrived, drove thence to a neighbouring mews, where they contracted for a cart, and while that was being got ready, took shelter in the harness-room beside the stove.  Here the lawyer presently toppled against the wall and fell into a gentle slumber; so that Pitman found himself launched on his own resources in the midst of several staring loafers, such as love to spend unprofitable days about a stable.  ’Rough day, sir,’ observed one.  ‘Do you go far?’

‘Yes, it’s a—­rather a rough day,’ said the artist; and then, feeling that he must change the conversation, ’My friend is an Australian; he is very impulsive,’ he added.

‘An Australian?’ said another.  ’I’ve a brother myself in Melbourne.  Does your friend come from that way at all?’

‘No, not exactly,’ replied the artist, whose ideas of the geography of New Holland were a little scattered.  ’He lives immensely far inland, and is very rich.’

The loafers gazed with great respect upon the slumbering colonist.

‘Well,’ remarked the second speaker, ’it’s a mighty big place, is Australia.  Do you come from thereaway too?’

‘No, I do not,’ said Pitman.  ‘I do not, and I don’t want to,’ he added irritably.  And then, feeling some diversion needful, he fell upon Michael and shook him up.

‘Hullo,’ said the lawyer, ‘what’s wrong?’

‘The cart is nearly ready,’ said Pitman sternly.  ’I will not allow you to sleep.’

‘All right—­no offence, old man,’ replied Michael, yawning.  ’A little sleep never did anybody any harm; I feel comparatively sober now.  But what’s all the hurry?’ he added, looking round him glassily.  ’I don’t see the cart, and I’ve forgotten where we left the piano.’

What more the lawyer might have said, in the confidence of the moment, is with Pitman a matter of tremulous conjecture to this day; but by the most blessed circumstance the cart was then announced, and Michael must bend the forces of his mind to the more difficult task of rising.

‘Of course you’ll drive,’ he remarked to his companion, as he clambered on the vehicle.

‘I drive!’ cried Pitman.  ’I never did such a thing in my life.  I cannot drive.’