I had a letter from him a month afterward, but as the postmark was hopelessly illegible, and as he had omitted to head the communication with any address, and as he referred to the place where he was working as “the station,” mentioning no names except those of his fellow-workmen, I had to withhold the response for which his forlorn soul craved.
“Takes a lot of different sorts of people to make a world,” observed Williamson, referring to the hero of my reminiscences.
“Original remark,” commented Ward. “And it seems to me that people’s as much alike as sheep; and Dan’s just one of the flock. I always speak of a man as I find him.”
“Another original remark,” said Broome. “But there’s greater fools than Dan—if you only knew where to drop across them.”
“Original remark, number three,” put in Andrews, who was five years older than any of the boys. “You’re all chaps of great experience.”
“Speaking of Dan, as you call him,” said I; “by the foot we recognise the Hercules; and if he knows as much about all other historical subjects as he does about Cawnpore and the American Presidents, he must have ripened into an extraordinary man. But then, an extraordinary man should have learned the difference between mallee and yarran in five years of solid scrub-observation.”
“Well, you are gauging him by a standard that’s foreign to his class of mind,” replied Andrews. “If he had been as strange to that gilgie as you were, and had got the same directions he gave you, he would have found it first shot. When a certain class of bushman says ‘mallee’, he means any sort of scrub except lignum; and when he says ‘mulga’, he means any tree except pine or currajong. Same mental slovenliness in women. A woman will tell a yarn that no man can make head or tail of, but it’s as clear as day to any other woman. And if you tell a woman a yarn, as it ought to be told, she’ll think she understands it, and you’ll think so too, if she says nothing. But if she chances any remark about it, you’ll see that the correctness of style has carried it over her head.”
“Speaking of style reminds me that Dan’s a bit of an author,” remarked Williamson. “One day I was in his place, and he casually showed me a page of some treatise he’s on of evenings. And, my word, the style was grand. Knocks Ouida into a cocked hat.”
“Well, I am glad to hear that,” I observed. “Useful sort of man on the station, too, I should imagine?”
“Average, or better,” replied Andrews. “Nothing brilliant, but careful and trustworthy. Revolves in his orbit without a what-you-may-call-’im.”
“Perturbation,” I suggested. “How far is his hut from here?”
“Twelve mile. Let’s see—six or eight mile north-west of where you dropped the first lot of wire that time.”
“Can’t I take him on the way to Mulppa?”
“Yes; but don’t trust him for directions beyond his own place. We’ll give you the geography. Better put up at his place to-night, and you’ll reach Mulppa in good time to-morrow evening. And look out for that dog of yours when you get in range of Dan’s place. He’s great on
