Dad returned to the house, foaming and vowing to take the gun and shoot
Joe down like a wallaby. But when he saw two horses hanging up he
hesitated and would have gone away again had Mother not called out that he
was wanted. He went in reluctantly.
Red Donovan and his son, Mick, were there. Donovan was the publican,
butcher, and horse-dealer at the Overhaul. He was reputed to be well-in,
though some said that if everybody had their own he would n't be worth
much. He was a glib-tongued Irishman who knew everything--or fondly
imagined he did--from the law to horse-surgery. There was money to be
made out of selections, he reckoned, if selectors only knew how to make
it--the majority, he proclaimed, did n't know enough to get under a tree
when it rained. As a dealer, he was a hard nut, never giving more than a
"tenner" for a twenty pound beast, or selling a ten pound one for less
than twenty pounds. And few knew Donovan better than did Dad, or had been
taken in by him oftener; but on this occasion Dad was in no easy or
benevolent frame of mind.
He sat down, and they talked of crops and the weather, and beat about the
bush until Donovan said:
"Have you any fat steers to sell?"
Dad had n't.
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