'You travel ----y light, sonny,' he said; 'but I suppose that's the easiest ----y way, when all's said.'
'Yes,' I agreed, with fluent mendacity; 'I got tired of the swag, and I've not very far to go anyway.'
'Ah! Where might ye be makin' for, then?'
At this point I realised for the first time the grave disadvantages of redundance in speech, of unnecessary verbiage. There had been no earthly need for my last words, and now that my fatal fluency had found me out, for the life of me I could not think of the name of a likely place. At length, with clumsily affected carelessness, I had to say, 'Oh, just down south a bit from Milton.'
'H'm! Port Lawson way, like?' suggested the curious bullocky.
'Yes, that's it,' I said hurriedly. 'Port Lawson way.'
'Ah, well, I've got a brother works in the ----y saw-mills there. Ye'll maybe know him--Jim Gray; big, slab-sided chap he is, with his nose sorter twisted like, where a ----y brumby colt kicked him when he was a kid. ----y good thing for him it was a brumby, or unshod, anyway; he'd a' bin in Queer Street else, I'm thinkin'. Jever meet him down that way?'
I admitted that I never had, but promised to look out for him.
'Aye, ye might,' said the bullocky. 'An', if ye see him, tell him ye met me--Bill's my name--Bill Gray, ye see--an' tell him-- Oh, tell him I said to mind his ----y p's an' q's, ye know, an' be good to his ----y self.'
I readily promised that I would, and our conversation lapsed for a time, while Bill Gray filled his pipe, cutting the tobacco on the ball of his left thumb from a good-sized black plug. For the rest of our walk together, I used extreme circumspection, and was able to confine our desultory exchanges to such safe topics as the bullocks, the weather, the roads, and so forth, all favourite subjects with bushmen. And then, as we drew near the one street of the little township, there was the saw-mill, and my opportunity for bidding good-day to a too inquisitive companion.