‘Because I do,’ retorted Slivers.  ’I hate her; I hate McIntosh; the whole biling of them; they’ve got the Pactolus claim, and if they find the Devil’s Lead they’ll be millionaires.’

‘Well,’ said the other, quite unmoved, ’all Ballarat knows that much.’

‘But I might have had it!’ shrieked Slivers, getting up in an excited manner, and stumping up and down the office.  ’I knew Curtis, McIntosh and the rest were making their pile, but I couldn’t find out where; and now they’re all dead but McIntosh, and the prize has slipped through my fingers, devil take them!’

‘Devil take them,’ echoed the cockatoo, who had climbed up again on the table, and was looking complacently at his master.

‘Why don’t you ruin your wife, you fool?’ said Slivers, turning vindictively on Villiers.  ’You ain’t going to let her have all the money while you are starving, are you?’

‘How the deuce am I to do that?’ asked Villiers, sulkily, relighting his cigar.

‘Get the whip hand of her,’ snarled Slivers, viciously; ’find out if she’s in love, and threaten to divorce her if she doesn’t go halves.’

‘There’s no chance of her having any lovers,’ retorted Villiers; ‘she’s a piece of ice.’

‘Ice melts,’ replied Slivers, quickly.  ’Wait till “Mr Right” comes along, and then she’ll begin to regret being married to you, and then—­’

‘Well?’

‘You’ll have the game in your own hands,’ hissed the wicked old man, rubbing his hands.  ‘Oh!’ he cried, spinning round on his wooden leg, ‘it’s a lovely idea.  Wait till we meet “Mr Right”, just wait,’ and he dropped into his chair quite overcome by the state of excitement he had worked himself into.

‘If you’ve quite done with those gymnastics, my friend,’ said a soft voice near the door, ‘perhaps I may enter.’

Both the inmates of the office looked up at this, and saw that two men were standing at the half-open door—­one an extremely handsome young man of about thirty, dressed in a neat suit of blue serge, and wearing a large white wide-awake hat, with a bird’s-eye handkerchief twisted round it.  His companion was short and heavily built, dressed somewhat the same, but with his black hat pulled down over his eyes.

‘Come in,’ growled Slivers, angrily, when he saw his visitors.  ’What the devil do you want?’

‘Work,’ said the young man, advancing to the table.  ’We are new arrivals in the country, and were told to come to you to get work.’

‘I don’t keep a factory,’ snarled Slivers, leaning forward.

‘I don’t think I would come to you if you did,’ retorted the stranger, coolly.  ’You would not be a pleasant master either to look at or to speak to.’

Villiers laughed at this, and Slivers stared dumbfounded at being spoken to in such a manner.

‘Devil,’ broke in Billy, rapidly.  ‘You’re a liar—­devil.’

‘Those, I presume, are your master’s sentiments towards me,’ said the young man, bowing gravely to the bird.  ’But as soon as he recovers the use of his tongue, I trust he will tell us if we can get work or not.’