Page:In bad company and other stories.djvu/94

 don't blame the men so much; it's these rascally agitators that ought to suffer, and they mostly get out of it.'

'I'll never believe that Bill Hardwick went in for the steamer-burning business,' said the banker, 'though he seems to have got mixed up with it somehow. There's some cur working it, I'm sure. He's got a decent stake in the country himself. He'd never risk losing his farm and the money that he's saved. I won't believe it till it's proved.'

'But he must have been with those Union fellows or they couldn't have arrested him,' answered the squatter. 'What was he doing in a Union Camp? Comes of keeping bad company, you see. I'm sorry for his wife—she seems a good sort; but if a man takes up with such people, he must pay the penalty.'

And then the Manager went keenly into his client's business, removing all thought of Bill's hard luck and Jenny's sad face from his mental vision. But after his day's work was done, and his books duly posted up, as he took his usual walk round the outskirts of the township, the 'case of William Hardwick, charged with arson in the matter of the steamer Dundonald,' recurred again and again with almost painful iteration.

'Must be a put-up job!' he ejaculated, as he turned towards the unpretending four-roomed cottage which served him for dwelling-place, office, and treasure-house. His clerk and assistant, a young fellow of twenty, in training for higher posts when the years of discretion had arrived, slept there with him.

But both took their meals in the best hotel of the township (there were only two)—a more interesting way of managing the commissariat than house-keeping where servants were scarce, as well as presenting distinct advantages from the cooking side. It may be added that they were never absent from the bank at the same time.

In addition to the convenience of the latter arrangement a country banker in Australia finds his account in a general suavity of demeanour. Bits of information then fall in his way, which a less cordial manner would not have attracted.

At the ordinary table of the Teamsters' Arms, Talmorah, being a great 'carrying centre,' all sorts and conditions of men were represented. Not that the partially renovated