Then in the Quarters “Luck to our neighbour” was the toast—­“luck,” and the hope that all his ventures might be as successfully carried through as his practical joke.  After that the Maluka gravely proposed “Cheon,” and Cheon instantly became statuesque and dignified, to the further diversion of Brown of the Bulls—­gravely accepting a thimbleful for himself, and, as gravely, drinking his own health, the Maluka just as gravely “clinking glasses” with him.  And from that day to this when Cheon wishes to place the Maluka on a fitting pedestal, he ends his long, long tale with a triumphant:  “Boss bin knock glass longa me one time.”

Happy Dick and Peter filled in time for the Quarters until sundown, when Cheon announced supper there with an inspired call of “Cognac!” And then, as if to prove that we are not always on the drink, or “whipping the cat, or committing suicide,” that we can love and live for others besides self, Neaves’ mate came down from the little rise beyond the slip-rails, where he had spent his day carving a headstone out of a rough slab of wood that now stood at the head of our sick traveller’s grave.

Not always on the drink, or whipping the cat, or committing suicide, but too often at the Parting of the Ways, for within another twelve hours the travellers, Happy Dick, the Line Party, Neaves’ mate, Brown of the Bulls, and Mac, had all gone or were going their ways, leaving us to go ours—­Brown back to hold his bulls at the Red Lilies until further showers should open up all roads, and Mac to “pick up Tam.”  But in the meantime Dan had become Showman of the Showers.

“See anything?” he asked, soon after sun-up, waving his hands towards the northern slip-rails, as we stood at the head of the thoroughfare speeding our parting guests; and then he drew attention to the faintest greenish tinge throughout the homestead enclosure—­such a clean-washed-looking enclosure now.

“That’s going to be grass soon,” he said, and, the sun coming out with renewed vigour after another shower, by midday he had gathered a handful of tiny blades half an inch in length with a chuckling “What did I tell you?”

By the next midday, grass, inches tall, was rippling all around the homestead in the now prevalent northwest breeze, and Dan was preparing for a trip out-bush to see where the showers had fallen, and Mac and Tam coming in as he went out, Mac greeted us with a jocular:  “The flats get greener every year about the Elsey.”

“Indeed!” we said, and Mac, overcome with confusion, spluttered an apology:  “Oh, I say!  Look here!  I didn’t mean to hit off at the missus, you know!” and then catching the twinkle in Tam’s eyes, stopped short, and with a characteristic shrug “reckoned he was making a fair mess of things.”