“I wish I could, Bogan,” said Mitchell. “I’d take a trip to Paris and see for myself whether the Frenchwomen are as bad as they’re made out to be, or go to Japan. But what are we going to do about Douglas?”
“Kick the skunk out of town, or boycott him!” said one or two. “He ought to be tarred and feathered and hanged.”
“Couldn’t do worse than hang him,” commented Jake Boreham, cheerfully.
“Oh, yes, we could,” said Mitchell, sitting down, resting his elbows on his knees, and marking his points with one forefinger on the other. “For instance, we might boil him slow in tar. We might skin him alive. We might put him in a cage and poke him with sticks, with his wife and children in another cage to look on and enjoy the fun.”
The chaps, who had been sitting quietly listening to Mitchell, and grinning, suddenly became serious and shifted their positions uneasily.
“But I can tell you what would hurt his feelings more than anything else we could do,” said Mitchell.
“Well, what is it, Jack?” said Tom Hall, rather impatiently.
“Send round the hat and take up a collection for him,” said Mitchell, “enough to let him get away with his wife and children and start life again in some less respectable town than Bourke. You needn’t grin, I’m serious about it.”
There was a thoughtful pause, and one or two scratched their heads. “His wife seems pretty sick,” Mitchell went on in a reflective tone. “I passed the place this morning and saw him scrubbing out the floor. He’s been doing a bit of house-painting for old Heegard to-day. I suppose he learnt it in jail. I saw him at work and touched my hat to him.”
“What!” cried Tom Hall, affecting to shrink from Mitchell in horror.