‘Names?’ he asked, grasping his pen firmly in his left hand.
‘Mine,’ said the stranger, bowing, ‘is Gaston Vandeloup, my friend’s Pierre Lemaire--both French.’
Slivers scrawled this down in the series of black scratches, which did duty with him for writing.
‘Where do you come from?’ was his next question.
‘The story,’ said M. Vandeloup, with suavity, ‘is too long to repeat at present; but we came to-day from Melbourne.’
‘What kind of work can you do?’ asked Slivers, sharply.
‘Anything that turns up,’ retorted the Frenchman.
‘I was addressing your companion, sir; not you,’ snarled Slivers, turning viciously on him.
‘I have to answer for both,’ replied the young man, coolly, slipping one hand into his pocket and leaning up against the door in a negligent attitude, ‘my friend is dumb.’
‘But,’ went on Vandeloup, sweetly, ‘his legs, arms, and eyes are all there.’
Slivers glared at this fresh piece of impertinence, but said nothing. He wrote a letter to McIntosh, recommending him to take on the two men, and handed it to Vandeloup, who received it with a bow.
‘The price of your services, Monsieur?’ he asked.
‘Five bob,’ growled Slivers, holding out his one hand.
Vandeloup pulled out two half-crowns and put them in the thin, claw-like fingers, which instantly closed on them.
‘It’s a mining place you’re going to,’ said Slivers, pocketing the money; ‘the Pactolus claim. There’s a pretty woman there. Have a drink?’
Vandeloup declined, but his companion, with a grunt, pushed past him, and filling a tumbler with the whisky, drank it off. Slivers looked ruefully at the bottle, and then hastily put it away, in case Vandeloup should change his mind and have some.
Vandeloup put on his hat and went to the door, out of which Pierre had already preceded him.
‘I trust, gentlemen,’ he said, with a graceful bow, ‘we shall meet again, and can then discuss the beauty of this lady to whom Mr Slivers alludes. I have no doubt he is a judge of beauty in others, though he is so incomplete himself.’
He went out of the door, and then Slivers sprang up and rushed to Villiers.
‘Do you know who that is?’ he asked, in an excited manner, pulling his companion to the window.
Villiers looked through the dusty panes, and saw the young Frenchman walking away, as handsome and gallant a man as he had ever seen, followed by the slouching figure of his friend.