Hartley Selmore had also been found available. He, indeed, could not very well remain away from financial headquarters. So many of his unpaid orders and acceptances, with the ominous superscription ‘Refer to drawer,’ found their way to bank and office by every mail from the interior, that a residence in the metropolis was vitally necessary. In good sooth, his unflagging energy and great powers of resource, under the presence of constant emergency, were equal to the demand made upon them. With the aid of every device of discount and hypothecation known to the children of finance, he managed to keep afloat. His day’s work, neither light nor easy of grasp, once over, the philosophical Hartley enjoyed his dinner, his cigar, his whist or billiards, as genuinely as if he had not a debt in the world, and was always ready for a _petit dîner_ if he distrusted not the wine. This dinner was, as usual, perfect in its way. The cooking at Morahmee was proverbial; the wines were too good for even Jermyn Croker to grumble at—had he done so he would have imperilled his reputation as connoisseur, of which he was careful; the conversation of the guests, at first guarded and unsympathetic, rose into liveliness with the conclusion of the first course, and, simultaneously with the circulation of Paul’s unrivalled well-iced vintage, became more adventurous and brilliant. ‘Where is our young friend Neuchamp?’ inquired Hartley Selmore. ‘I haven’t seen him for an age.’ ‘Gone to the bad long ago, hasn’t he?’ replied Croker, with an air of pleasing certainty. ‘Heard he had bought a terribly overrated place on the Darling,’ said Selmore. ‘Very sharp practice of Parklands. Too bad of him—too bad, wasn’t it, now?’ ‘Was it as good a bargain as Gammon Downs, Mr. Selmore?’ inquired Antonia, with a faint resemblance to former archness that lit up her melancholy features. ‘I am afraid there is not much to choose between you hardened pioneers when there is a newly-landed purchaser signalled.’ ‘Really, Miss Frankston, really!’ replied Selmore, with a fine imitation of the chivalrous and disinterested; ‘you do some of us injustice. In all this dreadful season, I assure you, the creeks at Gammon Downs are running like English brooks, and the grass is green—absolutely green!’ ‘Why, what colour should it be, Mr. Selmore—blue or magenta? But you know that I am an Australian, and therefore must have learned in the many conversations which have passed in my hearing about station matters that “green grass country” is generally spoken disrespectfully of, and “permanent water” is not everything. But we will not continue the rather worn subject.‘ ‘I fancy Neuchamp can’t be doing so badly,’ cut in Hardy Baldacre, with his customary assurance, ‘for I hear he is going to be married.’