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42 old man has got a double share of something better than brains!'

'Nonsense, darling! But at least the Judge was pleasant; what did you think of the Judge?'

'I funked him.'

'Good gracious! Why?'

'He's so dreadfully dignified; and he looks you through and through—not nastily, like Gran does, but as if you were something funny in a glass case.'

'What stuff and nonsense, Gladdie! You're making me miserable. Look here: talk to the Judge: draw him out a bit. That's all he wants, and he likes it.'

'What am I to call him—"Judge"?'

'No: not that: never that. For the present, "Sir James," I think.'

'And what am I to talk about?'

'Oh, anything—Australia. Interest him about the Bush. Try, dearest, at dinner—to please me.'

'Very well,' said Gladys; 'I'll have a shot.'

And she had one, though it was not quite the kind of shot Alfred would have recommended—at any rate, not for a first shot. For, on thinking it over, it seemed to Gladys