I grinned faintly.

"It happens often, and I don't mind."

"And there's your voice," he said.

"That Australian accent of yours… I know it's not as strong as many I've heard, but it's as near to cockney as dammit, and I expect you could broaden it a bit. You see," he went on firmly, as he saw I was about to interrupt, 'if you put an educated Englishman into a stable as a lad, the chances are the others would know at once by his voice that he wasn't genuine. But they couldn't tell, with you. You look right, and you sound right. You seem to me the perfect answer to all our problems. A better answer than I could have dreamt of finding. "

"Physically," I commented dryly. He drank, and looked at me thoughtfully.

"In every way. You forget, I told you I know a good deal about you. By the time I reached Perlooma yesterday afternoon I had decided toer… investigate you, one might say, to find out what sort of man you really were to see if there were the slightest chance of your being attracted by such a… a job." He drank again, and paused, waiting.

"I can't take on anything like that," I said.

"I have enough to do here." The understatement of the month, I thought.

"Could you take on twenty thousand pounds?" He said it casually, conversationally.

The short answer to that was "Yes'; but instead, after a moment's stillness, I said " Australian, or English? "

His mouth curled down at the corners and his eyes narrowed. He was amused.

"English. Of course," he said ironically.

I said nothing. I simply looked at him. As if reading my thoughts he sat down in an armchair, crossed his legs comfortably, and said, "I'll tell you what you would do with it, if you like. You would pay the fees of the medical school your sister Belinda has set her heart on.