‘Fond of being alone?’
‘Yes.’
‘So am I.’
‘All right.’ The man in the moleskin trousers and the shapeless hat laughed, lounged indeterminately for a minute, rolled his quid in his cheek, spat, wiped his bearded mouth with the back of a sunburnt hand, and laughed again. ‘There’s room enough for both of us. Good-night, mate.’
‘Good-night’
The keeper of the station strolled away with a backward glance, and the man of the camp sipped his tea and stared straight before him. The sound of the retreating footsteps had died away, when the Solitary raised a powerful voice and cried, ‘Hillo!’
‘Hillo!’ came the answer, so muffled by the trees that it sounded as if from a considerable distance. The two men walked towards each other and met face to face. They had exchanged a greeting of good-night together, but the sun had some two hours to travel before it set upon the plains. Here it was out of sight already behind a monstrous hill, and although the dome of the sky was one translucent quiet splendour, dusk lay in the shadow of the mountain and the nearer shadows of the sombre pines.
‘I want to ask you,’ said the camper-out, ‘if you’re a teetotaler?’
‘No,’ said the station-keeper, ‘not in particular.’
‘Any whisky about here just now?’