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 nominal punishment, could not contemplate with absolute satisfaction. But that feature followed the others into the papers which kept him intoxicated. And a bundle of these papers found their adventurous way to the latest fastness of Stingaree in the mallee.

The real villain dropped his eye-glass, clapped it in again, and did his best to crack it with his stare. Student of character as he was, he could not have conceived such a development in such a character. He read on, more enlightened than amused. "To think he had the pluck!" he murmured, as he dropped that Australasian and took up the next week's. He was filled with admiration, but soon a frown and then an oath came to put an end to it. "The little beast," he cried, "he'll kill that woman! He can't have kept it up." He sorted the papers for the latest of all—a sinful publican saved them for him—and therein read that Oswald Melvin had been committed for trial, and that his only concern was for the condition of his mother, which was still unchanged, and had seemed latterly to distress the prisoner very much.

"I'll distress him!" roared Stingaree to the mallee. "I'll distress him, if we change places for it!"

Riding all night, and as much as he dared by