“It is that,” retorted Mosey. “Divil a fear but they’ll nicely bone anythin’ in the shape o’ credit. Toffs is no slouches at barrickin’ for theyre own push. An’ I’ll tell you another dash good maximum,—it’s to keep off of weltin’ a dyin’ man.”
“Did you ever read Burke’s Diary, Willoughby?” asked Thompson. “It’s just two or three pages of the foolishest trash that any man ever lost time in writing; and I’m afraid it’s about a fair sample of Burke. I wish you could talk to some fellows that I know—Barefooted Bob, for instance. Now, there’s a man that was never known to say a thing that he was n’t sure of; and he’s been all over the country that Burke was over, and heard all that is to be known of the expedition. And Bob’s a man that goes with his eyes open. I wish you could talk to him. Lots of information in the back country that never gets down here into civilisation.”
“There is a certain justice in Mosey’s contention,” I remarked, addressing Willoughby. “He argues that, as Burke, by dying of hardship, earned himself a statue, so Brown, Jones, and Robinson—whose souls, we trust, are in a less torrid climate than their unburied bones—should, in bare justice, have similar post-obituary recognition. For Burke’s sake, of course, the comparison in value of service had better not be entered on. Mosey would have our cities resemble ancient Athens in respect of having more public statues than living citizens.”
“Your allusion to Athens is singularly happy,” replied the whaler; “but you will remember that the Athenians were, in many respects, as exclusive as ourselves. The impassable chasm which separates your illustrious explorer from Brown, Jones, and Robinson, existed also in Athens, though, perhaps, not so jealously guarded. But let us change the subject.”
“Yes; do,” said Cooper cordially. “I hate argyin’. Fust go off, it’s all friendly;—‘Yes, my good man.’—‘No, my dear feller.’—‘Don’t run away with that idear.’—‘You’re puttin’ the boot on the wrong foot.’—‘You got the wrong pig by the tail.’—an’ so on, as sweet as sugar. But by-’n’-by it’s, ‘To (sheol) with you for a (adj.) fool!’—‘You’re a (adj.) liar!’—‘Who the (adj. sheol) do you think you’re talking to?’—an’ one word fetchin’ on another till it grows into a sort o’ unpleasantness.”
“Hear anything of Bob and Bat lately?” asked Thompson, after a pause.
“Both gone to have a confab with Burke; an’ good enough for the likes o’ them,” replied Mosey. “Them sort o’ varmin’s the curse o’ the country. I ain’t a very honorable sort, myself, but I’d go on one feed every two days before I’d come as low as them. Well, couple or three year ago, you know, ole M’Gregor he sent the (adj.) skunks out with cattle to some new country, a hundred mile beyond (sheol); an’ between hardship, an’ bad tucker, an’ bad conscience, they both pegged out. So a feller from the Diamantinar told me a fortnit ago.”
“Smart fellows in their way,” remarked Thompson. “I don’t bear them any malice, though they rounded me up twice, and made me fork out each time.”
