On this morning of the nineteenth of April the alarm clock awoke Bill the Better as it did every weekday, and instantly the quiet of the iron roof announced to him that the rain had ceased and that the horses would be wanted.

Only the two station cooks were astir thus early, and uttering a lurid curse that he was the unfortunate third, Bill the Better set off for the stable, at the side of a maze of cattle and horse yards, for the night horse. It was then he saw the big, jet-black gelding, bridled and saddled, standing beyond the gate spanning the road to Opal Town.

“Crummy!” he said loudly. “That there’s Handerson’s ’orse. Ha! Ha! I might win that two quid off Charlie yet.”

The Karwir groom swerved from the line he was following to the stable to follow another line that brought him to the hardwood gate. There, resting his arms on the top rail, he regarded the horse whilst a smile played over his irregular features. Raising his voice, he said directly to the gelding:

“Ha! Ha! So you didn’t bring Mister Blooming Jeffery Handerson ’ome? So you left ’imsomewhere out there in Green Swamp Paddock, didyer? Well, I’mhopin ’ you broke hisflamin ’ neck, and then I’mhopin ’ you turned back to him and kicked thestuffin ’ outer ’im. Then I wins a coupler quid and does a chortle, rememberin ’ that time that MisterBloomin ’ Jeffery Handerson took to me.”

Turning away from the gate, Bill the Better walked across to that gate in thecanegrass hedge surrounding the big house, washing his hands with invisible soap and blithely whistling. It being a part of his duties to keep tidy the garden within thecanegrass fence, as well as to clean the many windows of the rambling house, he knew the room occupied by Mr Eric Lacy who was known over an enormous area of country as Young Lacy, the son of Old Lacy.