Ralph Stock

“ Adams fastened a despairing eye on the wasted ice-cream soda which—in obedience to the law of suction—sank lower and lower as it traveled through its straw.
“That's all very fine,” she said; “but it isn't good enough for us. Folks may be put off that way in London, where I've heard they can't call their souls their own; but Australia's a free country; we've got equal rights, and what we want to know—what we of Queenscliff demand to know, Mr. Bagnall—is what a raving lunatic is doing here among us.” ”

“ Adams, of the Ocean Kiosk, mother of a bevy of strapping and, from her point of view, marriageable girls, and dispenser of everything from tinned herrings to authentic details concerning the royal family, was wont to wag her head prophetically over Sprague's peculiarities when an eligible bachelor happened that way.
“You see,” she would say, with a glance divided between the viceregal soda fountain and her eldest daughter, “you see what this lonely living will do for a man.” ”

“ He wore a striped white-and-green silk pyjama jacket, open at the throat, duck trousers, and white canvas shoes, without socks. A wet towel and a bathing costume were flung over his shoulder, and his hair, matted with salt water, clung to his head in untidy profusion. The dog that followed at his heels looked like nothing so much as an animated wet doormat. ”