Mr. Linton decided that his house-warming present
to Tommy should be a coat of paint for her mansion, and soon it looked
new--dark red, with a gleaming white roof, while the rooms were painted
in pretty fresh colours. "Won't Tommy get a shock!" chuckled Bob
gleefully. The dinginess of the house had not escaped him on the
morning that they had made their first inspection, but Tommy, who loved
freshness and colours, had made no sign. Had you probed the matter,
Tommy would probably have remarked, with some annoyance, that it was not
her job to begin by grumbling.
Wally came hurtling back from Queensland at the first hint of the
influenza outbreak, and was considerably depressed at finding his twin
souls, Jim and Norah, engaged in jobs that for once he could not share.
Therefore he, too, fell back on the new farm, and found Bob knitting his
brow one evening over the question of furniture.
"I don't want to buy much," he said. "Tommy doesn't, either; we talked
it over. We'd rather do with next to nothing, and buy decent stuff by
degrees if we get on well. Tommy says she doesn't want footling little
gimcracky tables and whatnots and things, nor dressing-tables full of
drawers that won't pull out. But I've been looking at the cheap stuff in
Cunjee, and, my word, it's nasty! Still, I can't afford good things now,
and Tommy wouldn't like it if I tried to get 'em.
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