He went back and finished his cooling dinner, and took off his boots, and stretched himself on an easy chair with his feet up on another.
“Lave me shleep for an hour or two,” he said to his wife. “They won’t be burnin’ the town down, or horse-racin’ in the main street, or tearin’ the hotel bar out b’ the roots for a two-three hours, so I’ll shleep whoile there’s a chance.”
The station men wheeled off the bridge and pounded down to the river edge and watered their horses, and then rode them round to the hotel stable and fed them, and sent the horse boy with them stringing down to the hotel paddock.
“An’ now that’s off our minds,” said Whip Thompson, “I reckon I can put some severe punishment on a long beer.”
“Coolongolong-go-long-long-beer,” chanted one of the men softly, and the crowd surged for the bar and pounded it, and demanded long beers of the publican with clamorous threats to come and help themselves if he didn’t hurry his fingers.
“’Nother one—quick,” said Darby the Bull, thumping his empty glass back on the bar. “That sizzled an’ dried out ’fore it reached my throat.” He lifted and tilted the next one, and it slid down between breaths. “I can feel myself beginnin’ to irrigate,” he said complacently. “That got half-way, an’ another should reach the back paddocks inside me.”
“It’s a long dry spell,” said Cookie Blazes. “But if the rain don’t come, be thankful the beer does.”
“Tap another barrel, for the well’s gone dry,” sang Jack Ever, and the men took the chorus up and yelled it till the tin roof above them danced again.
“Hit ’er up and fill ’em up,” cried Ned Gunliffe. “Come on, Never-Never Jack—next verse”—and again the chorus was bellowed in the ancient and accepted fashion, with the long-drawn up-running note on the “We” and the boot-stamped emphasis on the “must.”
We-e-e must have a long wet wash and bath,