Part 21

"I alter myself from time to time," said Stingaree, as he struck a light.

"It must be a wonderful life!"

But Stingaree lit up without a word, and Kentish had the wit to do the same. They smoked in silence for some minutes. A gray ash had grown on each cigar before Kentish demanded an opinion of the brand.

"To tell you the truth," said Stingaree, "I have smoked strong trash so many years that I can scarcely taste it."

And he peered rather pathetically through his glass.

"Didn't the same apply to Punch?"

"No; I have always read the papers when I could," said Stingaree, and suddenly he was smiling. "That's one reason why I make a specialty of sticking up the mail," he explained.

Mr. Kentish was not to be drawn into a second deliverance on the bushranging career. "Is it a good number?" he asked, nodding toward the copy of Punch. The bushranger picked it up.

"Good enough for me."

"What date?"

"Ninth of December."

"Nearly three months ago. I was in London then," remarked Kentish, in a reflective tone.

"Really?" cried Stingaree, under his breath. His voice was as soft as the other's, but there was suppressed interest in his manner. His dark eyes were only less alight than the red cigar he took from his teeth as he spoke. And he held it like a connoisseur, between finger and thumb, for all his ruined palate.

"I was," repeated Kentish. "I didn't sail till the middle of the month."

"To think you were in town till nearly Christmas!" and Stingaree gazed enviously. "It must be hard to realize," he added in some haste.

"Other things," replied Kentish, "are harder."

"I gather from the Punch cartoon that the new Law Courts are in use at last?"

"I was at the opening."

"Then you may have seen this opera that I have been reading about?"

Kentish asked what it was, although he knew.

"Iolanthe."

"Rather! I was there the first night."

"The deuce you were!" cried Stingaree; and for the next quarter of an hour this armed scoundrel, the terror of a district as large as England and Wales, talked of nothing else to the man whom he was about to bind to a tree. Was the new opera equal to its predecessors? Which were the best numbers? Did Punch do it justice, or was there some jealousy in that rival hot-bed of wit and wisdom?

Unfortunately, Guy Kentish had no ear for music, but he made a clear report of the plot, could repeat some of the Lord Chancellor's quips, and was in decided disagreement with the captious banter from which he was given more than one extract. And in default of one of the new airs Stingaree rounded off the subject by dropping once more into--

"For he might have been a Rooshian, A French, or Turk, or Prooshian, Or, perhaps, I-tal-i-an! Or, perhaps, I-tal-i-an! But in spite of all temptations To belong to other nations He remains an Englishman!"

"I understand that might be said of both of us," remarked Kentish, looking the outlaw boldly in the eyes. "But from all accounts I should have thought you were out here before the days of Gilbert and Sullivan."

"So I was," replied Stingaree, without frown or hesitation. "But you may also have heard that I am fond of music--any I can get. My only opportunities, as a rule," the bushranger continued, smiling mischievously at his cigar, "occur on the stations I have occasion to visit from time to time. On one a good lady played and sang Pinafore and The Pirates of Penzance to me from dewy eve to dawn. I'm bound to say I sang some of it at sight myself; and I flatter myself it helped to pass an embarrassing night rather pleasantly for all concerned. We had all hands on the place for our audience, and when I left I was formally presented with both scores; for I had simply called for horses, and horses were all I took. Only the other day I had the luck to confiscate a musical-box which plays selections from The Pirates. I ought to have had it with me in my swag."

So affable and even charming was the quiet voice, so evident the appreciation of the last inch of the cigar which had thawed a frozen palate, and so conceivable a further softening, that Guy Kentish made bolder than before. He knew what he meant to do; he knew how he meant to do it. And yet it seemed just possible there might be a gentler way.