"Baal got 'em!"
"All right. Me give you fella some," and the storeman produced two pairs well worn, which were thankfully accepted.
Half an hour later one of the boys returned, bursting with indignant language. "What for, you blurry fool. You bin gib it my missis's trousers?"
DULL-WITTED
At a western station the manager, in order to save a fence newly erected, thought to satisfy the blacks by leaving a loose coil of wire here and there for spear heads. But instead of taking that generous hint, the natives invariably cut out from the fence what they wanted. On another station in the same district, when a fence was under construction small coils of loose wire were left every few hundred yards as a tribute or free will offering; but in this case they again overlooked the loose stuff and cut what they wanted from the strained wire.
STRATEGY
Incomprehensibly dull as blacks frequently are they occasionally exhibit shrewdness which is all the more remarkable because of its unexpectedness. As the station hands were busy erecting buildings in newly opened up country, the blacks sent an envoy to engage their attention while others of the tribe cut off the iron bracing from the paddock gates wherewith to make tomahawks. They succeeded in completely despoiling one gate before they were disturbed.
LITERAL TRUTH
A black boy of more than ordinary intelligence, who had been sent to fill a couple of tubs with water, sauntered back with a self-satisfied air and said—"Me finish 'em!"
The master found that the boy, as a preliminary, had fitted one tub into the other.