“You have been an officer of the shearers’ union, you say?” enquired Strong, coldly.

“I’ve been an honorary officer, never a paid one,” answered the man, who held his hat on his knee.

“There’s a man in Sydney now, named Hawkins.  Do you know him?”

“Yes.  I’ve shorn with him out at the—­”

“What sort of a man is he?” interrupted Strong.

“He’s a young fellow.  There’s not much in him.  He talks wild.”

“Has he got much influence?”

“Only with his own set.  Most of the men only want a start to break away from fellows like Hawkins.  I’m confident the new anion I was talking of, admitting ‘freedom of contract,’ would break the other up and that Hawkins and the rest of them couldn’t stop it.”

“It seems feasible,” said Strong, sharply.  “At any rate, there’s nothing lost by trying it.  This is what we will do.  We will pay you all expenses and six pounds a week from to-day to go up to Queensland, publicly denounce the union, support ‘freedom of contract’ and try to start another union against the present one; generally to act as an agent of ours.  Payment will be made after you come out.  Until then you must pay your own expenses.”

“I think I should have expenses advanced,” said the man.

“We know nothing of you.  You represent yourself as so-and-so and if you are genuine there is no injustice done by our offer.  You must take or leave it.”

“I’ll take it,” said the man, after a slight hesitation.

“There’s another matter.  Do you know the union officials in Brisbane?”

“I know all of them, intimately.”

“Then you may be able to do something with them.  We are informed that they are implicated in all that’s going on, the instigators of it.  Bring us evidence criminally implicating them and we will pay well.”

“This is business,” said the man, a little shamefacedly.  “What will you pay?”

Strong jotted some figures on a slip of paper.  “If you are a friend of these men,” he said, passing the slip over, “you will know their value apiece to you.”  A sneer he could not quite conceal peeped from under his business tone.

“That concludes our business, I think,” he continued, tearing the slip up, having received it back.  “I will instruct our secretary and you can call on him this afternoon.”

He touched an electric bell-button on his desk.  A clerk appeared at the door instantly.

“Show this man out by the back way,” ordered Strong, glancing at the clock.  “Good-day!”

The summarily dismissed visitor had hardly gone when another clerk announced Mr. Melsom.

“Anybody with him?”

“Yes, sir.  A tall, bush-looking man.”

“Show them both in.”

“What sneaking brutes these fellows are!” Strong thought, contemptuously, jotting instructions on some letters he was glancing through, working away as one accustomed to making the most of spare minutes.