a one has every advantage in any conceivable situation. The records of military enterprise, exploration, pioneering, and so forth, furnish abundant evidence of this very obvious fact. You will find, I think, that high breeding and training are conditions of superiority in the human as well as in the equine and canine races; pedigree being, of course, the primary desideratum. Non generant aquilæ columbas, we say.”
“Don’t run away with the idear that nobody knows who Columbus was,” retorted Bum. “He discovered America—or else my readin’s did me (adj.) little good.”
“More power to yer (adj.) elbow, Bum,” said Mosey approvingly. “But, gentleman or no gentleman, if a feller ain’t propped up with cash, this country’ll (adj.) quick fetch him to his proper (adj.) level.”
“Pardon me if I differ from you, Mosey,” replied Willoughby blandly. “A few months ago, I travelled the Lachlan with a man fitted by birth and culture to be a leader of society; one whose rightful place would be at least in the front rank of your Australian aristocracy. How do you account for such a man being reduced to solicit the demd pannikin of flour?”
“Easy,” retorted the sansculotte: “the duke had jist settled down to his proper (adj.) level—like the bloke you’ll see in the bottom of a new pannikin when you’re drinkin’ out of it.”
“Mosey,” said Cooper impressively; “if I git up off o’ this blanket, I’ll kick”—(I did n’t catch the rest of the sentence). “Give us none o’ your (adj.) Port Phillip ignorance here.”
“You can git a drink o’ good water in ole Vic., anyhow,” sneered Mosey, with the usual flowers of speech.
“An’ that’s about all you can git,” muttered Cooper, faithfully following the same ornate style of diction.
“Now, Mosey,” said Willoughby, courteously but tenaciously, “will you permit me to enumerate a few gentlemen—gentlemen, remember—who have exhibited in a marked degree the qualities of the pioneer. Let us begin with those men of whom you Victorians are so justly proud,—Burke and Wills. Then you have”
“Hold on, hold on,” interrupted Mosey. “Don’t go no furder, for Gossake. Yer knockin’ yerself bad, an’ you don’t know it. Wills was a pore harmless weed, so he kin pass; but look ’ere—there ain’t a drover, nor yet a bullock driver, nor yet a stock-keeper, from ’ere to ’ell that couldn’t ’a’ bossed that expegition straight through to the Gulf, an’ back agen, an’ never turned a hair—with sich a season as Burke had. Don’t sicken a man with yer Burke. He burked that expegition, right enough. ‘’Howlt! Dis-mount!’ Grand style o’ man for sich a contract! I tell you, that (explorer) died for want of his sherry an’ biscakes. Why, the ole man, here, seen him out beyond Menindie, with his”
“Pardon me, Mosey—was Mr. Price connected with the expedition?”
“No (adj.) fear!” growled Price resentfully. “Jist happened to be there with the (adj.) teams. Went up with stores, an’ come down with wool.”
