‘Jump off and come in,’ he said. ‘Delighted to see you—horse knocked up as usual? We’ll take the saddle off here, and let him pick at those reeds; they’re better than nothing. I was having a go-in at the garden here, just to take it out of myself a little, and forget my annoyances. But we must have some breakfast, though we are all going to be ruined, as you say—and it looks very like it.’ As Mr. Neuchamp in his revulsion of feeling rattled off these greetings, partly in welcome and partly in explanation, his guest removed the saddle and several folds of blanket from the very prominent vertebræ of his gaunt courser, watching him roll and then attack the scantily furnished reed-bed, with much satisfaction. ‘Where did you come from this morning?’ inquired Ernest of his guest, as, after a prolonged visit to the bathroom, they sat down to breakfast; ‘you must have made a very early start if you came from Mildool.’ ‘I camped on the river,’ said Mr. Levison, attacking the corned beef in a deliberate but determined manner; ‘in the bend, just below those free-selecting friends of yours; you don’t seem to have been getting on well with ’em lately, from what they say.’ ‘We are not on good terms, I must admit,’ replied Mr. Neuchamp, with a slight air of embarrassment, recollecting Levison’s prophecy of evil, which had been verified to the letter; ‘but it is entirely their own fault. I was much deceived in them.’ ‘Very like,’ answered that gentleman, with as near an approach to a smile as his grave features ever permitted. ‘It takes a smart man to be up to chaps of their sort.’ ‘Did you stay there?’ asked Ernest, anxious to lead the conversation into a less unsatisfactory channel; ‘they have not made themselves a very convenient dwelling.’ ‘No!’ replied Mr. Levison, preferring a request for another instalment of the cold round of beef. ‘I never stay at a place if I’m going to make a deal. It makes a difference in the bargain, I always think; and I wanted to make a little deal with those chaps, from what I heard as I came up the river.’ ‘A deal?’ said Ernest, with some surprise; ‘and how did you get on? I shouldn’t have thought they had much to sell.’ ‘Well, they’ve got a middling lot of quiet cattle for one thing; they’re regular crawlers, but none the worse for that if grass ever grows again. Then they’ve got, what with their selections and pre-emptives, a tidy slice, and of not the worst part, of Rainbar run. And as there was a friend of mine that a small place like that would suit, and the cattle and the few sheep, at a price—at a price,’ he continued, with slow earnestness—‘why—I’ll ask for another cup of tea—I had an hour’s mighty hard dealing, and bought the whole jimbang right out.’ ‘Indeed!’ said Ernest, gratified in one sense, but slightly alarmed at the idea of a second pastoral proprietor being introduced into the sacred demesne of Rainbar; ‘but they have to fulfil their residence condition, haven’t they, according to the Land Act?’