Page:Bridefrombush00horn.pdf/99

Rh horn-blowing; though I shouldn't hate it if I were on one.'

'Would you so very much like to fizz around on a coach, then?'

'Would I not!' said Gladys.

The first person they saw, on getting home, was Granville, who was lounging in the little veranda where they had taken tea on the afternoon of their arrival, smoking cigarettes over a book. It was the first volume of a novel, which he was scanning for review. He seemed disposed to be agreeable.

'Gladys,' he said, 'this book's about Australia; what's a "new chum," please? I may as well know, as, so far, the hero's one.'

'A "new chum, his sister-in-law answered him readily, 'is some fellow newly out from home, who goes up the Bush; and he's generally a fool.'

'Thank you,' said Granville; 'the hero of this story answers in every particular to your definition.'

Granville went on with his skimming. On a slip of paper lying handy were the skeletons of some of the smart epigrammatic sentences with which the book would presently