“You wouldn’t like it yourself, you know, Doctor,” he said; “it’s enough to make any man a little queer in his temper. I’m in for six months this time for assault, and very sorry I shall be to go out again, I can tell you. My mind’s at ease in here; but when I’m outside, what with the Government and what with Tattooed Tom of Hawkesbury, there’s no chance of a quiet life.” “Who is he?” I asked. “He’s the brother of John Grimthorpe, the same that was condemned on my evidence; and an infernal scamp he was, too! Spawn of the devil, both of them! This tattooed one is a murderous ruffian, and he swore to have my blood after that trial. It’s seven year ago, and he’s following me yet; I know he is, though he lies low and keeps dark. He came up to me in Ballarat in ’75; you can see on the back of my hand here where the bullet clipped me. He tried again in ’76, at Port Philip, but I got the drop on him and wounded him badly. He knifed me in ’79, though, in a bar at Adelaide, and that made our account about level. He’s loafing round again now, and he’ll let daylight into me--unless--unless by some extraordinary chance someone does as much for him.” And Maloney gave a very ugly smile. “I don’t complain of _him_ so much,” he continued. “Looking at it in his way, no doubt it is a sort of family matter that can hardly be neglected. It’s the Government that fetches me. When I think of what I’ve done for this country, and then of what this country has done for me, it makes me fairly wild--clean drives me off my head. There’s no gratitude nor common decency left, Doctor!” He brooded over his wrongs for a few minutes, and then proceeded to lay them before me in detail. “Here’s nine men,” he said; “they’ve been murdering and killing for a matter of three years, and maybe a life a week wouldn’t more than average the work that they’ve done. The Government catches them and the Government tries them, but they can’t convict; and why?--because the witnesses have all had their throats cut, and the whole job’s been very neatly done. What happens then? Up comes a citizen called Wolf Tone Maloney; he says ‘The country needs me, and here I am.’ And with that he gives his evidence, convicts the lot, and enables the beaks to hang them. That’s what I did. There’s nothing mean about me! And now what does the country do in return? Dogs me, sir, spies on me, watches me night and day, turns against the very man that worked so very hard for it. There’s something mean about that, anyway. I didn’t expect them to knight me, nor to make me Colonial Secretary; but, damn it! I did expect that they would let me alone!” “Well,” I remonstrated, “if you choose to break laws and assault people, you can’t expect it to be looked over on account of former services.”