by his son Mosey, a tight little fellow, whose body was about five-and-twenty, but whose head, according to the ancient adage, had worn out many a good pair of shoulders.
Willoughby, who was travelling loose with Thompson and Cooper, was a whaler. Not owing to any inherent incapacity, for he had taken his B.A. at an English university, and was, notwithstanding his rags and dirt, a remarkably fine-looking man; bearing a striking resemblance to Dixon, even in features. But as the wives of Napoleon's generals could never learn to walk on a carpet, so the aimless popinjay of adult age can never learn to take a man's place among rough-and-ready workers. Even in spite of Willoughby's personal resemblance to Dixon, there was a suggestion of latent physical force and leathery durability in the bullock driver, altogether lacking in the whaler, and equiponderated only by a certain air of refinement. How could it be otherwise? Willoughby, of course, had no horse—in fact, like Bassanio, all the wealth he had ran in his veins; he was a gentleman. Well for the world if all representatives of his Order were as harmless, as inexpensive, and as unobtrusive as this poor fellow, now situated like that most capricious poet, honest Ovid, among the Goths.
One generally feels a sort of diffidence in introducing one's self; but I may remark that I was at that time a Government official, of the ninth class; paid rather according to my grade than my merit, and not by any means in proportion to the loafing I had to do. Candidly, I was only a Deputy-Assistant-Sub-Inspector, but with the reversion of the Assistant-Sub-Inspectorship itself when it should please Atropos to snip the thread of my superior officer.
The repast being concluded, the drivers went into committee on the subject of grass—a vital question in '83, as you may remember.
"It's this way," said Mosey imperatively, and deftly weaving into his address the thin red line of puissant adjective; "You dunno what you're doin' when you're foolin' with this run. She's hair-trigger at the best o' times, an' she's on full cock this year. Best watched station on the track. It's risk whatever way you take it. We're middlin' safe to be collared in the selection, an' we're jist as safe to be collared in the ram-paddick. Choice between the divil an' the dam. An' there's too big a township o' wagons together. Two's enough, an' three's a glutton, for sich a season as this."
"I think Cooper and I had better push on to the ram-paddock," suggested Thompson. "You three can work on the selection. Division of labour's the secret of success, they say."
"Secret of England's greatness," mused Dixon. "I forgit what the (irrelevant expletive) that is."
"The true secret of England's greatness lies in her dependencies, Mr. Dixon," replied Willoughby handsomely; and straightway the serene, appreciative expression of the bullock driver's face, rightly interpreted, showed that his mind was engaged in a Græco-Roman conflict with the polysyllable, the latter being uppermost.
"Well, no," said Mosey, replying to Thompson; "no use separatin' now; it's on'y spreadin' the risk; we should 'a' separated yesterday. I
