or a buggy waiting for him. He travels for a night and day without a bite to eat, and, on arrival, he finds that the station is eighty or a hundred miles away. Then he has to explain matters to a publican and a coach-driver. God bless the publican and the coach-driver! God forgive our social system!
Native industry was represented at one place along the line by three tiles, a chimney-pot, and a length of piping on a slab.
Somebody said to me, 'Yer wanter go out back, young man, if yer wanter see the country. Yer wanter get away from the line,' I don't wanter; I've been there.
You could go to the brink of eternity so far as Australia is concerned and yet meet an animated mummy of a swagman who will talk of going 'out back.' Out upon the out-back fiend!
About Byrock we met the bush liar in all his glory. He was dressed like―like a bush larrikin. His name was Jim. He had been to a ball where some blank had 'touched' his blanky overcoat. The overcoat had a cheque for ten 'quid' in the pocket. He didn't seem to feel the loss much. 'Wot's ten quid?' He'd been everywhere, including the Gulf country. He still had three or four sheds to go to. He had telegrams in his pocket from half-a-dozen squatters and supers offering him pens on any terms. He didn't give a blank whether he took them or no. He thought at first he had the telegrams on him, but found that he had left them in the pocket of the overcoat aforesaid. He had learned butchering in a day. He was a bit of a scrapper himself and talked a lot about the ring.
