The hat went round. Billy Woods was first, then Box-o’-Tricks, and then Mitchell.
Billy contributed with eloquent silence. “I was only jokin’, Giraffe,” said Box-o’-Tricks, dredging his pockets for a couple of shillings. It was some time after the shearing, and most of the chaps were hard up. “Ah, well,” sighed Mitchell. “There’s no help for it. If the Giraffe would take up a collection to import some decent girls to this God-forgotten hole there might be some sense in it.... It’s bad enough for the Giraffe to undermine our religious prejudices, and tempt us to take a morbid interest in sick Chows and Afghans, and blacklegs and widows; but when he starts mixing us up with strange women it’s time to buck.” And he prospected his pockets and contributed two shillings, some odd pennies, and a pinch of tobacco dust.
“I don’t mind helping the girls, but I’m damned if I’ll give a penny to help the old ——,” said Tom Hall.
“Well, she was a girl once herself,” drawled the Giraffe.
The Giraffe went round to the other pubs and to the union offices, and when he returned he seemed satisfied with the plate, but troubled about something else.
“I don’t know what to do for them for to-night,” he said. “None of the pubs or boardin’-houses will hear of them, an’ there ain’t no empty houses, an’ the women is all agen ’em.”
“Not all,” said Alice, the big, handsome barmaid from Sydney. “Come here, Bob.” She gave the Giraffe half a sovereign and a look for which some of us would have paid him ten pounds—had we had the money, and had the look been transferable.
“Wait a minute, Bob,” she said, and she went in to speak to the landlord.
“There’s an empty bedroom at the end of the store in the yard,” she said when she came back. “They can camp there for to-night if they behave themselves. You’d better tell ’em, Bob.”
“Thank yer, Alice,” said the Giraffe.