‘I am very happy to have been able to do you so small a service; and as for your advice, which you have been friend enough to favour me with,’ said Ernest, feeling depressed and much lowered in spirit by his guest’s extremely ‘faithful’ criticism, ‘I can assure you that it has sunk deeply into my mind.’ ‘I’m glad of that,’ said Mr. Levison gravely. ‘There’s very few men worth bothering with in the way of advice, and fewer still that aren’t too great fools to take it when it’s put before ’em. But I took a fancy to you, somehow, from the first time we met, when you had the thick boots and the swag. I thought that it showed pluck in you; and, from what I see here, you’re one of those that goes in for helping other people along the road of life. And a thundering soft thing it is, in a general way, I tell you. Why, you’ve been teaching that native chap to read, so he says.’ ‘I plead guilty to that,’ said Ernest, with a smile. ‘The fact is that Jack Windsor is such a smart fellow that is seems a pity he should be left helpless, as all ignorant men are. And there’s plenty of spare time in the bush.’ ‘Is there?’ said Mr. Levison. ‘I never found it so. But that says nothing. I say it’s a manly thing to feel for your neighbour because maybe he hasn’t had a hundredth part of the chances you’ve had yourself. That’s being kind and true-hearted, and being a gentleman, as I understand it,’ concluded Mr. Levison, with rather unusual emphasis. ‘But that’s not what I want to say,’ pursued he, buckling up the girths of his second saddle, and arranging his pack with the most accurate balance possible. ‘It’s this: you want some more store cattle on Rainbar.’ This last proposition Mr. Levison made in a tone of such peculiar conviction that Ernest could not frame a denial, but listened in wonder, merely ejaculating― ‘In a dry season?’ ‘It ain’t going to be dry for ever,’ said Mr. Levison oracularly, ‘and cattle are bound to rise within the next two years, as sure as my name’s―― Smith,’ he added, with a faint relaxation of his facial muscles. ‘I’ve just bought five thousand head of store cattle from the man I met at Mingadee; bought ’em cheap, for cash―my name’s Cash, you know―and better bred cattle I never saw. I know ’em well. They’re all on a run on the Turon, and I’m to take delivery there. Seventeen-and-six for bullocks and twelve for cows. Can’t hurt at that, eh?’ ‘I should say not,’ said Mr. Neuchamp, calculating the scale of profits at three pounds ten shillings, which his bullocks had fetched, and, like all inexperienced owners, omitting to allow for either deaths, losses, or non-fattening tendencies. ‘I wish I had half of them here―that is, when rain comes.’