“Do you think I’m a blanky fool?” said Jack, and I shut up.
The shanty was kept by a man who went by the name of Thomas, a notorious lamber-down,[[2]] as I found out afterwards. He was a big, awkward bullock of a man, a selfish, ignorant brute, as anyone might have seen by his face; but he had a loud voice, and adopted a careless, rollicking, hail-fellow-well-met! come-in-and-sit-down-man-alive! clap-you-on-the-back style, which deceived a good many, or which a good many pretended to believe in. His “missus” was an animal of his own species, but she was duller and didn’t bellow.
[2] “Lamber-down,” a shanty keeper who entices cheque-men to drink.
He had a rather good-looking girl there—I don’t know whether she was his daughter or not. They said that when he saw the shearers coming he’d say, “Run and titivate yourself, Mary; here comes the shearers!”
But what surprised me was that Jack Barnes didn’t seem able to see through Thomas; he thought that he was all right, “a bit of a rough diamond.” There are any amount of scoundrels and swindlers knocking about the world disguised as rough diamonds.
Jack had a fit of coughing when we came in.
“Why, Jack!” bellowed Thomas, “that’s a regular churchyarder you’ve got. Go in to the kitchen fire and I’ll mix you a stiff toddy.”
“No, thank you, Thomas,” said Jack, glancing at me rather sheepishly, I thought. “I’ll have a hot cup of coffee presently, that’ll do me more good.”
“Why, man alive, one drink won’t hurt you!” said Thomas. “I know you’re on the straight, and you know I’m the last man that ’ud try to get you off it. But you want something for that cold. You don’t want to die on the track, do you? What would your missus say? That cough of yours is enough to bust a bullock.”
“Jack isn’t drinking, Thomas,” I said rather shortly, “and neither am I.”