‘Be kicked now!’ exclaimed the overseer, ‘if that wasn’t a close shave! The Boss oughter think himself lucky, so he ought!’ So, carrying the book carefully under his arm, he jogged Barracaboowards. Half way he met Mr Morris coming in at full speed. ‘No hurry in loife, sorr!’ cried the overseer, beamingly, and showing ‘Don Quixote.’ ‘I ped six notes for it, an’ had to borrow two. It was just touch an’ go, though, so it was!’ ‘BARTON’S JACKAROO.’ ‘Bother!’ exclaimed Mr Barton, the Manager of Tarnpirr, as he finished reading one of his letters on a certain evening. ‘What’s the matter, papa?’ asked his daughter, Daisy, pausing with the teapot in her hand. ‘Oh, nothing much, my dear,’ he replied; only we are to have company. The firm is sending up the 444th cousin of an Irish Earl to learn sheep-farming, and I suppose I’ve got the contract to break him in. That’s all.’ ‘I wish your mother could be at home, Daisy,’ he continued. ‘I never did care much about these colonial-experience fellows. They generally give a lot of trouble, especially when they’re well connected. There, read the precious letter for yourself. Pity we couldn’t put him into the hut, instead of making him one of ourselves—eh, Daisy?’ The girl laughed as she read aloud,— ‘Mr Fortescue is highly connected; and as he not only brings introductions from the London office, but also possesses an interest in several properties out here, we hope you will do your best to make him comfortable, and to give him that insight into the business that he seems desirous of acquiring at first hand.’ ‘Why, daddy!’ she exclaimed, ‘you ought to think yourself honoured—“highly connected,” not merely “well,” remember—by such a charge! As for myself, I am all anxiety to see him.’ ‘I don’t think anything of the sort, then, Daisy,’ said her father. ‘And if I could afford to do so, I should like to tell them that I consider it a piece of impertinence on their part to ask me to receive a perfect stranger, knowing how I am situated alone with you, how small the place is, and how roughly we live. But one can’t ride the high horse on a hundred and fifty pounds a year!’ And the Manager of Tarnpirr sighed, and stared thoughtfully into his cup. In the general sense of the word, Daisy Barton was not a pretty girl, inasmuch as she possessed not one regular feature. But it was such a calm, quiet, pleasant face, out of which dark blue eyes looked so tenderly and honestly at you, that one forgot to search for details in the charm of the whole. Add to this, one of the neatest, trimmest, most loveable little figures imaginable, and you may have some faint idea of the pleasant picture she made as she sat thinking which of the two spare rooms should be got ready for the new inmate. Mrs Barton was never at the station. She was a confirmed invalid, and resided permanently in a far southern town. Daisy and an old Irishwoman kept house.