summer midday
The situation was good though -- without being too far from his former address -- and there was stabling for a pair of horses . And by the time he had finished with it , it was one of those characteristically Australian houses which , added to wherever feasible , without a thought for symmetry or design -- a room built on here , a covered passage there , a bathroom thrown out in an unexpected corner , with odd steps up and down -- have yet a spacious , straggling comfort all their own . How glad he was to leave the tiny , sunbaked box that till now had been his home . It had had neither blind nor shutter ; and , on his entering it of a summer midday , it had sometimes struck hotter than outside . The windows of his new room were fitted with green venetians ; round the verandah-posts twined respectively a banksia and a Japanese honey-suckle , which further damped the glare ; while on the patch of buffalo-grass in front stood a spreading fig-tree , that leafed well and threw a fine shade . He had also added a sofa to his equipment . Now , when he came in tired or with a headache , he could stretch himself at full length .