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'Whose dingo killed my cat, Pothook?' asked the superintendent.

Pothook rolled his eye towards young Toby, who hung his head with a guilty look.

'So, you scoundrel! that was the way the Colonel went, was it? And you pretended to hunt for it so diligently that I gave you your dinner and a stick of tobacco. If ever I see you or your dog after this within a mile of the head station, I'll take the stock-whip and make it a caution to the pair of you. What did you do with the body? Where put um pussy?'

No answer from the criminal; but Pothook, anxious to curry favour at everybody else's expense, informed us, 'Him yeat um.'

'Ate him?'

'Yes; him tink that one very good, white fellov 'possum.'

And Pothook furthermore let out that, under a somewhat similar delusion respecting a bottle of cold-drawn castor oil, from which he had one day seen young Harris draw the cork and swallow a glass, said little Toby had, at a moment when the hut was empty, slipped in, and, seizing the bottle as it stood on the shelf, hastily gulped down a goodly portion, under the impression that it was something of an intoxicating nature.