“I hope I ain’t disturbin’ yer,” he shouted, as he bent over my bunk, “but there’s a cove—”
“You needn’t shout!” I interrupted, “I’m not deaf.”
“Oh—I beg your pardon!” he shouted. “I didn’t know I was yellin’. I thought you was the deaf feller.”
“Oh, that’s all right,” I said. “What’s the trouble?”
“Wait till them other chaps is done swearin’ and I’ll tell yer,” he said. He spoke with a quiet, good-natured drawl, with something of the nasal twang, but tone and drawl distinctly Australian—altogether apart from that of the Americans.
“Oh, spit it out for Christ’s sake, Long’un!” yelled One-eyed Bogan, who had been the worst swearer in a rough shed, and he fell back on his bunk as if his previous remarks had exhausted him.
“It’s that there sick jackaroo that was pickin’-up at Big Billabong,” said the Giraffe. “He had to knock off the first week, an’ he’s been here ever since. They’re sendin’ him away to the hospital in Sydney by the speeshall train. They’re just goin’ to take him up in the wagonette to the railway station, an’ I thought I might as well go round with the hat an’ get him a few bob. He’s got a missus and kids in Sydney.”
“Yer always goin’ round with yer gory hat!” growled Bogan. “Yer’d blanky well take it round in hell!”
“That’s what he’s doing, Bogan,” muttered Gentleman Once, on the shake-down, with his face to the wall.
The hat was a genuine “cabbage-tree,” one of the sort that “last a lifetime.” It was well coloured, almost black in fact with weather and age, and it had a new strap round the base of the crown. I looked into it and saw a dirty pound note and some silver. I dropped in half a crown, which was more than I could spare, for I had only been a green-hand at Big Billabong.