On the Track

by Henry Lawson

I come to the river, I jumped it quite clever!
Me wife tumbled in, and I lost her for ever,
St. Patrick's own day in the mornin'!

This is greatly appreciated by Jimmy Nowlett, who is suspected, especially by his wife, of being more cheerful when on the roads than when at home.

. . . . .

“Sam Holt” was a great favourite with Jimmy Nowlett in after years.

Oh, do you remember Black Alice, Sam Holt?
Black Alice so dirty and dark—
Who'd a nose on her face—I forget how it goes—
And teeth like a Moreton Bay shark.

Sam Holt must have been very hard up for tucker as well as beauty then, for

Do you remember the 'possums and grubs
She baked for you down by the creek?

Sam Holt was, apparently, a hardened flash Jack.

You were not quite the cleanly potato, Sam Holt.

Reference is made to his “manner of holding a flush”, and he is asked to remember several things which he, no doubt, would rather forget, including