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was quite a quiet, well-behaved one for a New Australian. I do think it was quick of him to find out what was wrong.”
    “Lucky he came along just then,” said Jack.
    “My word,” said Ann with feeling. “If he hadn’t come I think I’d probably have put Peter into the utility and brought him straight back here, because it’s so much closer here than Balaclava. I wouldn’t have known what to do with mastoid.”
    The Dormans left soon after that, and drove back to Leonora. Life went on as usual on the station, and on Saturday evening Tim Archer drove into Banbury with Mario Ritti for the Red Cross dance. He hit it off all right with Mario in spite of their very different backgrounds, but there was always a little difficulty with Mario at a dance. There was a barrier of language and experience between the Italian and the local Australian girls; he was inclined to be too bold with them, and they would not willingly have beenseen with him except at a dance, where social barriers were somewhat broken down. There had been an Italian girl at one of the hotels till recently, and Mario had done most of his dancing with her, but now she had left to go to Melbourne to earn eight pounds a week in a café, and Tim was a little anxious about Mario in consequence.
    There were about eighty thousand pounds’ worth of new motorcars parked outside the Shire Hall that night, for wool had been good for a couple of years. They parked the old Chevrolet and went into the hall, neat in their blue suits, with oiled hair carefully brushed. For a time they stood with a little crowd of young men round the door while the girls sat on chairs in long lines on each side of the floor waiting to be asked to dance; only two or three couples were yet dancing, and the place was still stone cold. Tim studied the girls; Elsie Peters was there talking to Joan McFarlane. If he had been alone he would have gone and asked one or other of them to dance, but that meant leaving Mario high and dry. He felt an obligation to the Italian to get him started with at least one partner before going off to his own friends, and he did not think that either Elsie or Joan would appreciate it if he landed her with an Eyetie who spoke poor English and was full of rather obvious sex appeal.
    He glanced down the row of girls beside the floor, and saw two black-haired girls sitting together. They were both rather broad in the face, and both wore woollen dresses of a sombre hue and rather an unfashionable cut. They were obviously a pair and strangers to Banbury; Tim had never seen them before. They were clearly New Australians.
    He nudged Mario. “What about that couple over there?” he asked. “They’d be Italian, wouldn’t they?”
    “I do not think,” said Mario. “I think Austrian perhaps, or Polish. I have not seen these girls before.”
    “Nor have I. Let’s go and ask them.” Once Mario was launched with these two, he would be able to go off and dance with his own sort.
    They crossed the floor to the girls, and Tim, taking the nearest one, said, “May I have this dance? My name’s Tim Archer.” Mario bowed from the waist before the other, looking as if he was going to kiss her hand at any moment, and said, “Mario Ritti.”
    Both girls smiled and got to their feet. Tim’s girl was about twenty-five years old and pleasant-looking in a broad way; in later life she would certainly be stout. She danced a quickstep reasonably well, and as they moved off she said with a strange accent, “Teem Archer?”
    “That’s right,” he said. “Tim.”
    She tried again. “Tim?”
    “That’s right,” he said again. “Short for Timothy.”
    “Ah—I understand. Timothy.”
    “What’s your name?”
    She smiled. “I am Tamara Perediak.”
    “How much?”
    “Tamara Perediak.”
    “Tamara? I never heard that name before.”
    “It is a name of my country,” she said. “Where I was born, many girls are called Tamara.”
    “Are you Polish?” he asked.
    She