'I want you to go and bring me my typewriter from the parlour. And then
you've got to dictate "copy," about the Alexandra City Gas-Bore. Please
go at once.'

He obeyed. Mrs Gildea bent over Lady Bridget.

'Biddy! . . . You're not faint, are you?'

Lady Bridget roused herself and looked up at her friend rather
wildly. . . . 'No. . . . What do you take me for? . . . I said I wanted
real things, Joan . . . And I've got them.'

She laughed a little hysterically.

'All right! But we shall give you a taste of real Australia that isn't
quite so gruesome. That some of the tragedy belongs to the pioneer
days. . . . I could tell you things myself that my father has told me.
. . . But I won't. . . . Mind, Colin McKeith is no more of a hero than
a dozen bush boys I knew when I first knew him. Yes, put it there,
Colin, please. . . . And now, if Biddy doesn't mind, we'll proceed to
business, which is my IMPERIALIST Letter. I suppose you haven't brought
back any snapshots of Alexandra City and your wonderful Gas-Bore that
Mr Gibbs could get worked up for his paper?'




CHAPTER 13