"There's one more point to that yarn," said Dalrymple, closing the door he had held open, "that I don't think you yourself are aware of, Jack. It was when you got back to the store, with your shirt burnt off your back, and the country in a blaze all round, that I first noticed the legend on your chest. As you probably know, Mr. Sellwood, the Duke has one of his own eagles tattooed upon his chest. I saw it that day for the first time. I felt sure it meant something. And years afterwards, when I heard that a London solicitor was scouring the Colonies for the unknown Duke of St. Osmund's, it was the sudden recollection of that mark which made me to some extent the happy instrument of his discovery." "To every extent!" cried Jack, wringing his benefactor's hand. "I've always said so. Mr. Sellwood, I owe him everything, and yet he makes a song about my scaring away a few blackfellows with a bush-fire! By the hokey, I've a good mind to have him live happily with us ever after for his pains!" The Home Secretary bent his snowy head: his rosy face was the seat of that peculiarly grim expression with which political caricaturists have familiarised the world. Dalrymple's light eyes twinkled like polished flints; here was high game worthy of his gun. He took the empty chair on Mr. Sellwood's left. "I understand, sir, that you are fatally bitten with golf?" began the squatter in his airiest manner. The other lit a cigarette with insolent deliberation before replying. "I'm fond of the game," he said at length, "if that's what you mean." "That was precisely what I did mean. Pardon me if I used an unparliamentary expression. I have read a great deal in your English papers--with which I never permit myself to lose touch--of the far-reaching ravages of the game. Certainly the disease must be widespread when one finds a Cabinet Minister down with the--golf!" "We don't pronounce the _l_," Mr. Sellwood observed. "We call it _goff_." For though in political life an imperturbable temper was one of his most salient virtues, the Home Secretary was notoriously touchy on the subject of his only game. Dalrymple laughed outright. "A sure symptom, my dear sir, of a thoroughly dangerous case! But pray excuse my levity; I fear we become a little too addicted to chaff in the uncivilised wilds. I am honestly most curious about the game. I'm an old fogey myself, and I might like to take it up if it really has any merits----" "It has many," put in Claude cheerily, to divert an attack which Mr. Sell wood was quite certain to resent. "Has it?" said the squatter incredulously. "For the life of one I can't see where those merits come in. To lay yourself out to hit a sitting ball! I'd as soon shoot a roosting hen!" "Hear, hear!" cried Jack. "That's exactly what _I_ say, Mr. Dalrymple."