Vandeloup had heard Barty’s vocal performance, and could not forbear a smile as he thought of the young man’s three songs with the same accompaniment to each. Suppressing, however, his inclination to laugh, he asked Barty to have a drink, which invitation was promptly accepted, and they walked in search of a hotel. On the way, they passed Slivers’ house, and here Vandeloup paused. ‘This was the first house I entered here,’ he said to Barty, ‘and I must go in and say good-bye to my one-armed friend with the cockatoo.’ Mr Jarper, however, drew back. ‘I don’t like him,’ he said bluntly, ‘he’s an old devil.’ ‘Oh, it’s always as well to accustom oneself to the society of devils,’ retorted Vandeloup, coolly, ‘we may have to live with them constantly some day.’ Barty laughed at this, and putting his arm in that of Vandeloup’s, they went in. Slivers’ door stood ajar in its usual hospitable manner, but all within was dark. ‘He must be out,’ said Barty, as they stood in the dark passage. ‘No,’ replied Vandeloup, feeling for a match, ‘someone is talking in the office.’ ‘It’s that parrot,’ said Barty, with a laugh, as they heard Billy rapidly running over his vocabulary; ‘let’s go in.’ He pushed open the door, and was about to step into the room, when catching sight of something on the floor, he recoiled with a cry, and caught Vandeloup by the arm. ‘What’s the matter?’ asked the Frenchman, hastily. ‘He’s dead,’ returned Barty, with a sort of gasp; ‘see, he’s lying on the floor dead!’ And so he was! The oldest inhabitant of Ballarat had joined the great majority, and, as it was afterwards discovered, his death was caused by the breaking of a blood-vessel. The cause of it was not clear, but the fact was, that hearing of the discovery of the Devil’s Lead, and knowing that it was lost to him for ever, Slivers had fallen into such a fit of rage, that he burst a blood-vessel and died in his office with no one by him. The light of the street lamp shone through the dusty windows into the dark room, and in the centre of the yellow splash lay the dead man, with his one eye wide open, staring at the ceiling, while perched on his wooden leg, which was sticking straight out, sat the parrot, swearing. It was a most repulsive sight, and Barty, with a shudder of disgust, tried to drag his companion away, but M. Vandeloup refused to go, and searched his pockets for a match to see more clearly what the body was like. ‘Pickles,’ cried Billy, from his perch on the dead man’s wooden leg; ‘oh, my precious mother,--devil take him.’