“Because the youngster isn’t his,” said Mitchell.
“How do you know that?”
“By the look of it—and by the look on her face, once, when she caught me squinting from the kid’s face to Bogan’s.”
“And whose was it?” I asked, without thinking.
“How am I to know?” said Mitchell. “It might be yours for all I know—it’s ugly enough, and you never had any taste in women. But you mustn’t speak of that in Bourke. But there’s another youngster coming, and I’ll swear that’ll be Bogan’s all right.
“A curious thing about Bogan is that he’s begun to be fidgety about his personal appearance—and you know he wasn’t a dood. He wears a collar now, and polishes his boots; he wears elastic-sides, and polishes ’em himself—the only thing is that he blackens over the elastic. He can do many things for himself, and he’s proud of it. He says he can see many things that he couldn’t see when he had his eyes. You seldom hear him swear, save in a friendly way; he seems much gentler, but he reckons he would stand a show with Barcoo-Rot even now, if Barcoo would stand up in front of him and keep yelling——”
“By the way,” I asked, “how did Bogan lose the sight of his other eye?”
“Sleeping out in the rain when he was drunk,” said Mitchell. “He got a cold in his eye.” Then he asked, suddenly:
“Did you ever see a blind man cry?”
“No,” I said.