On the other hand, it may have been a symptom of brain-softening.

But it happened to be neither; it was in fact a means to a wicked end.

On the fading end of a superior suburb, where the streets of fine villas and mansions thinned off and dwindled, and were lost among the gum trees of the original wilderness, Nickie found his billet.
The suburb was coming ahead.

The motor-car had made it easy and accessible to the rich.

Splendid dwellings were going up all over the place, the road makers were exceedingly busy, and hammers of the stone-knappers rattled an incessant fusillade.
Nickie the Kid came to Banklands one pleasant summer day, watched the busy people with a desultory sort of interest, and moralised within himself.
"Do these people expect to live a thousand years ?" mused Mr.Crips, "that they build such solid houses?
Or do they regard them as monuments?
Look at that palace, and I sleep well on a potato sack under four boards!" Nickie was examining a fine, white house, ornate as a wedding cake, with plentiful cement, and balconies as frivolous as those of a Chinese pagoda.