Page:The little blue devil (IA littlebluedevil00mackiala).pdf/129

Tony was nearly twenty when this idea occurred to him, and an opportunity of carrying it out did not present itself for some time. Then, with considerable trouble, he got a commission as travelling agent for an Italian motor firm.

It took him seven or eight months to get as far as New Zealand, since he went via South America and his business detained him in many ports. He loved it all. The joy of life was, in fact, beginning to enter into him for the first time; he liked South America largely and in detail, and made up his mind to return some day at leisure.

But New Zealand gave him an odd mixed pleasure far more poignant. It was with a real thrill that he woke one morning to find himself in the greenery of Auckland Harbour; though he had never been there before, though the atmosphere was so different, somehow Paranui felt magically near, and that name meant a great deal to Tony. He had a good deal to do in Wellington, but managed to snatch a week in which to visit Robertson in the South Island. It would have been rather a farce not to, as he had come round the world expressly for that.

Robertson was more than glad to see him. He was just mounting when Tony arrived, going to look at some sheep in the Five Corners paddock (Tony remembered that very well—he had had his first “buster” from a stock-horse in the Five Corners). He wanted to put off the inspection in honour of the guest, and yarn at home instead, but Tony would have none of that. He asked for another horse, and they rode off together. Riding, the seven years and more were easily bridged, and anyhow, Paranui had changed little, and Robertson even less. Tony himself was the one who had altered, and even in him it was more growth—growth of all kinds—than anything else.

Robertson, looking hard at him, could see the dour little boy in the square-shouldered man (yes, he distinctly was a man, in spite of his youth) who had come back.