He shed his canoes, disposed of his "torchered" feet comfortably along the seat with a sigh of relief, and proceeded to fill a villainous old pipe, which presently filled the carriage with fumes.
"Py yingo, Dat!" said a stout, good-humoured Swede next me. "You' tobaggo schmells stronk. Fot brandt is 'e?"
"It's good ol' R——," said Dad, slowly removing the pipe from his gills and waving it about to point his remark. "Some people ses it stinks, but they won't give it a fair go. It'll do me. Smokes good, 'n only 'bout 'alf the price of the other stuff, and grown and mannyfactered right 'ere in the country. I likes it all right."
I asked him for a pipeful to try, and he shoved a plug across. I found it all right, in spite of its strong reek, and have always smoked it since. Subsequent experience makes me think that if Australians only would try their own country's productions a bit oftener, there might be perhaps fewer strikes and more work to be got. However——
"Noo chum, ain't yer?" asked Dad, as I handed his plug back.
"Yes," I answered, "bound up for Atherton."
"Ah!" he returned, "that's the place fer cows n' corn;" then, puffing at his old gumbucket with drowsy contentment, "I mind when I wis up there in '90...," and a small flow of anecdote. He was an accomplished raconteur; had been all over Queensland, mostly mining; possessed the usual retentive memory of the illiterate, and really turned out to be what in more polished circles is usually referred to as a "charming old gentleman." He told us most interesting yarns of his experiences. Mines, sheep, prospecting, scrub-felling, fire and flood—pretty well everything. I must say though that he didn't string me on, but, knowing where I was bound, gave me some sound advice which I laid to heart.
Thus we passed the night, yarning, smoking, dozing; while the train rattled and bumped along. Going up a steep grade somewhere near the Glasshouse Mountains, the carriage got quite a perceptible tilt fore and aft, and the long series of terrific jerks the engine gave, in her efforts to negotiate the pinch, brought my heart into my mouth thinking what would happen if a coupling broke and sent us adrift back down the grade. Daybreak showed us scrubby, measly-looking forest country, flat and uninteresting. Then, about 10 a.m., Bundaberg. A wash, some tea, and a bit of a leg-stretcher along that fine wide avenue, Bourbon-street. Back to the train, more hilly stretches of forest gradually merging into the dismal mangrove-bordered mud flats, and we slowed down and brought up at Gladstone.
Into the main street I went under the guidance of my fellow-travellers, three of whom were Gladstonians, and popped into a pub for lunch (only for lunch, of course), where my Scandinavian acquaintance, who possessed a quiet sort of dry humour, created a bit of a disturbance. The dining room was full. Soup was served, the hostess, distinctly an Irish woman, personally attending to us. Olaf smelt his soup, made a face, cascaded the liquid with his spoon, and generally made it apparent that something was wrong. The hostess, with the danger-signal flying in her cheeks and all the room's attention attracted, bore down on us.
"And is the soup not t' yer liking, sirr?"