And as one after another of his well-meant remarks fell flat: "Become almost a deaf-mute, it would seem, under the eternal female clacking." But for each mortal there exists at least one theme to fire him.

In the case of Beamish this turned out to be the Land Question.

Before the gold discovery he had been a bush shepherd, he told Mahony, and, if he had called the tune, he would have lived and died one.

But the wife had had ambitions, the children were growing up, and every one knew what it was when women got a maggot in their heads.

There had been no peace for him till he had chucked his twelve-year-old job and joined the rush to Mount Alexander.