Three knocks on the wooden partition was the signal which, if he were
not serving a customer, summoned him to the kitchen.
"Oh, Richard, it's ripen beautifully!" And, red with heat and pride,
Polly drew a great golden-crusted, blown-up sponge-cake along the oven
shelf. Richard, who had a sweet tooth, pretended to be unable to curb
his impatience.
"Wait! First I must see . . ." and she plunged a knife into the cake's
heart: it came out untarnished. "Yes, it's done to a turn."
There and then it was cut; for, said Mahony, that was the only way in
which he could make sure of a piece. Afterwards chunks were dealt out to
every one Polly knew--to Long Jim, Hempel, Tommy Ocock, the little
Hemmerdes. Side by side on the kitchen-table, their feet dangling in the
air, husband and wife sat boy-and-girl fashion and munched hot cake,
till their appetites for dinner were wrecked.
But the rains that heralded winter--and they set in early that year--
had not begun to fall when more serious matters claimed Mahony's
attention.
Chapter IV
It was an odd and inexplicable thing that business showed no sign of
improving. Affairs on Ballarat had, for months past, run their usual
prosperous course. The western township grew from day to day, and was
straggling right out to the banks of the great swamp. On the Flat, the
deep sinking that was at present the rule--some parties actually
touched a depth of three hundred feet before bottoming--had brought a
fresh host of fortune-hunters to the spot, and the results obtained bid
fair to rival those of the first golden year.
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