His mind a little shocked by the adjective, which was so foreign to his acceptance of Miss Pinkney’s personality, Bony did as requested. The road to the city began to rise just before it entered the scattered township of Yarrabo, and the driver of the approaching wagon loaded with one huge log had been quickly compelled to change to a lower gear. The engine was labouring with a steady roar, and presently they watched the vehicle pass the gateway in Miss Pinkney’s cypress hedge. A similar vehicle was coming the other way, fast andloadless. As itcame speeding down the long hill its exhaust issued a succession of loud reports similar to those made by a battery of light guns.

“I expect I shall become used to it,” Bony told his hostess. “I sleep soundly.”

“We all get used to it in time, Mr Bonaparte, but a visitor at first finds it annoying.” Miss Pinkney gave a silk-clad leg a smart slap. “The traffic begins about five in the morning and it continues all through the day until about nine. Itis astonishing the number of logs that pass every day.”

“Do they bring them from very far?”

“From up in those mountains, in frightful places,” she replied. “You should go up one day in an empty truck and return with it on its way to a mill. How on earth they ever get the logs to the loading stages I don’t know. Oh my! The mosquitoes are beginning. They do bite me so. Do they attack you?”

“They do,” admitted Bony, rubbing an ankle. “Will you not show me your garden?”

“Of course. I’ll call Mr Pickwick. He dearly loves to walk in the garden in the cool of the evening.”

She left him to go into the house, and he stepped down from the veranda and strolled to the front gate, there to gaze up and down the broad highway at the few shops and scattered houses. Then he heard her voice again in front of the house.