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was fond enough of him to forgive him even the burden of gratitude, a burden which Tony had no hope of paying off—no, not with the labour of his whole life. Besides, life at Paranui was very different with Baldwin supreme; Tony soon discovered that. Robertson had left during the Christmas holidays, when the boys were revelling in the cessation of lessons. The light work they all did was rather welcome than otherwise; it made them feel manly. Besides, it was mainly rabbiting, and that was pure joy. Tony did as the others did, but in dead earnest always. That attitude of his amused them. “Learnin’ for a wager, are y’?” they said, and never knew how near the truth they went. He had a bet against the world, though the feeling of it was barely half-expressed in his mind.

But at the end of January, when school began again at Starling Creek, Tony did not go back with the others. Baldwin said that they were short-handed at Paranui, and that he might as well begin to do something towards earning his keep. Tony was the last person in the world to grumble at that, but he found Baldwin’s tongue hard to bear. He was given all the tedious, dirty work, which again was not extraordinary; though hard, it was work that a boy was capable of doing, but it was emphatically not work that was usually done for the ten shillings a week that Tony had been receiving for the last six months or so. Moreover, Baldwin was never satisfied. It seemed as if he were doing his best to provoke an outburst, but Tony kept a padlock on his tongue; it was the only thing he could do to show his love for Robertson. As the days went on the work increased till he was bearing a man’s full burden. He was tough and strong as No. 9 fencing-wire, though he was not yet thirteen; but he could not carry that weight and Baldwin’s nagging for long without something snapping. The dizzying weariness of the Cairo days and nights, with their hag-ridden dreams, had not returned—he was so