III
About this time a change came over the whim-driver at the Seven-mile. It was noticed by young Parker, who saw him frequently, and lamented by the landlord of the Governor Loftus Hotel, the nearest grog-shanty, where Jim and his cheque were now several weeks overdue. The fact was, Jim had renounced the luxury of the periodical 'drunk,' and was coming out as a bush dandy. He shaved himself every morning of his life; he appeared in none but the snowiest moleskins and the pinkest and most becoming of striped cotton shirts; he even went to the extreme lunacy of shining his boots every evening before retiring to his bunk. But, what was far more remarkable, his speech was the speech of Jim-of-the-Whim no more. He dropped no aspirates, his sentences were grammatical; and without any specific deduction from his case, it may be noted as a curious fact that errors of speech may be easily acquired by any educated man who chooses to live long enough in a low grade, and takes pains to forget
