Part 61 (2/2)
”Which way are you travelling?” I asked
”Any way Work's scarce; contractors ca doing I wish to God the rabbits would co worth while”
And so the profitless conversation (conversation is generally profitless) went on by fits and starts, till the sand and dirt-pellets ceased to drift
Half-an-hour later, it was an aled with dust
By this tiuest was now on his feet, but shaky enough With Bligh-like impartiality, I meted out half a pint of water to hi quarter-pint to myself
”Got a bit of tobacco to spare?” he asked ”Mine's all in ”
”Certainly,” I replied ”Are you hard-up? Because I can lend you five bob till we ot a couple or three notes left, and even if I hadn't, I'd think twice before I touched your ”
”Especially in the sense of being peculiar to certain sections of society,”
I replied ”Now strike straight across there, and you'll fetch the tank in a mile and a half”
”What's your name?” he demanded, as I placed !”
”So-long”
My horses went off freely I struck the wicket-gate with accuracy and bowled on toward the declining sun, which showed dull and coppery through suspended dust; till, just at that hour which calls the faithful Mussulman to prayer, and the no less faithful sundowner to the station store, I reached e horses were in the paddock; the kerosene-tins still stood in the sheltered angle by the chimney, but the floere dead; the ser swept except by the winds of heaven, and was becoht sift out priceless relics with unpronounceable nale bark, and re-entered; then Jack the Shellback appeared, and, recognising er quantity of profanity and indecency into his cordial welcoht think possible Scarce as water was, he cursedthe sand out of oes of the precious liquid, whilst he swore the saddles of ed some supper for me Even before the shower, the whole area of h-water mark round neck and wrists, had been pistol-proof with a thousand samples of dust, patiently collected over the same nuet rid of it--along with much moral and mental virtue, unfortunately--possibly at the Runny that, at the place where the Lachlan had been
”Stiff little breeze we had,” I remarked, as I sat down to supper
”Well, no,” replied Jack, in reluctant and co reply fit to place before the sanctiue, that if I had ever been at sea, I would think nothing of a whiff like that
He told me of storms he had weathered--particularly, one off Christiana cooner, a solitary island in the south Atlantic--and the effect of his discourse is that I have ever since been careful, in the co of the winds I have encountered
”I'll fix you up for a hat,” he continued, in language of matchless force and piquancy ”Bend her; she'll about fit you I dropped across her one day I was in the road-paddock”
'She' was a drab belltopper, in perfect preservation, with a crown nothing less than a foot and a half high, and a narroavy brim
She proved a perfect fit when I 'bent' her I wore her afterward for ht she rolled away froently Take her for all in all, I shall not look upon her like again
”Now, if you'd a pair o' skylights athort your cutwater, you'd be set up for a professor of phrenology, or doxology, or any other ology,”
suggested Jack, with one oath, two unseemly expletives, and two obscenities