For the first hour or so, along the road, he was telling me all about his adventures at his auntie’s.
‘But they spoilt me too much, dad,’ he said, as solemn as a native bear. ‘An’ besides, a boy ought to stick to his parrans!’
I was taking out a cattle-pup for a drover I knew, and the pup took up a good deal of Jim’s time.
Sometimes he’d jolt me, the way he talked; and other times I’d have to turn away my head and cough, or shout at the horses, to keep from laughing outright. And once, when I was taken that way, he said—
‘What are you jerking your shoulders and coughing, and grunting, and going on that way for, dad? Why don’t you tell me something?’
‘Tell you what, Jim?’
‘Tell me some talk.’
So I told him all the talk I could think of. And I had to brighten up, I can tell you, and not draw too much on my imagination—for Jim was a terror at cross-examination when the fit took him; and he didn’t think twice about telling you when he thought you were talking nonsense. Once he said—
‘I’m glad you took me home with you, dad. You’ll get to know Jim.’
‘What!’ I said.