"There, that's real bush tea for you," continued the Duke, in a simmer of satisfaction himself as he stirred the mixture with the stick. "Now take the pannikin and dip it in. There's no milk, mind; that wouldn't be the thing at all. Here are some biscuits, and they aren't the thing either. I'd have made you a damper, only I never could strike a camp-oven; it's been trouble enough to raise the plant I've got. What do you think of the tea?" "Capital!" cried Claude, who was seated on the bunk. And indeed the whole thing appealed to his poetic palate; for he could not forget that this hut was within half a mile of the Towers themselves, in which the Duke took evidently far less pleasure; and the many-sided contrast amused his literary sense, even while it piqued his family pride. "How I wish it was the real thing!" said Jack, with a sigh. "I'd have a camp-oven, then, and you should have your mutton chop and damper served up hot. I used to be an artist at a damper. Then after breakfast I'd take you with me round the paddocks, and you'd help me muster a mob and drive them to the tank; and you'd hear them bleat and see them start to run when they smelt the water. My colonial oath, I can see 'em and hear 'em now! Then we'd give our mokes a drink in the middle of 'em, and we'd take a pull at our own water-bags. Then we might camp under the nearest hop-bush for a snack, and I should yard you up at the homestead, and make you know my old boss before the day was over. What a day it would be for you! You wouldn't believe the sky could get so blue or your face so red. But it's no use talking--here we are again!" And he set down his empty pannikin with another sigh. "You wouldn't really prefer that life to this?" "No; perhaps not; but I like to think of it, as you can see." "Surely you like your new life best by this time? You wouldn't go back there now?" "I like my new friends best; I wouldn't go back on them. Olivia and you, for instance." "It's her birthday," said Claude; but a silence had intervened. "So it is. God bless her! I haven't got her anything, because I seemed to make a mull of it with those flowers. Have you?" "Yes, I have a trifle for her; it's rather a different thing on her birthday, you know. And--and I've written her a few verses; that's what I've been doing all night." "Clever dog!" said Jack enviously. "See what it is to be a man of genius; here's where it comes in so handy. And has Llewellyn done her something, too?" "Yes; a portrait of herself." "Well, let him label it to that effect, or she may put her foot in it like me. He never shows me his blooming drawings now. But I wish you'd let me see your poem."