Page:While the Billy Boils, 1913.djvu/142

 'I don't think you will. He left the colonies when he sold out. He's―he's dead now.'

'Dead! Old Ben Hake?'

'Yes. You knew him, then?'

The stranger seemed to have lost a great deal of his assurance. He turned his side to the counter, hooked his elbow on it, and gazed out through the door along Sunset Track.

'You can give me half-a-pound of nailrod,' he said, in a quiet tone―'I s'pose young Hake is in town?'

'No; the whole family went away. I think there's one of the sons in business in Sydney now.'

'I s'pose the M'Lachlans are here yet?'

'No; they are not. The old people died about five years ago; the sons are in Queensland, I think; and both the girls are married and in Sydney.'

'Ah, well!…I see you've got the railway here now.'

'Oh, yes! Six years.'

'Times is changed a lot.'

'They are.'

'I s'pose―I s'pose you can tell me where I'll find old Jimmy Nowlett?'

'Jimmy Nowlett? Jimmy Nowlett? I never heard of the name. What was he?'

'Oh, he was a bullock driver. Used to carry from the mountains before the railway was made.'

'Before my time, perhaps. There's no one of that name round here now.'

'Ah, well!…I don't suppose you knew the Duggans?'

'Yes, I did. The old man's dead, too, and the