“My oath! You don’t say so! P’raps he didn’t want to let you know he couldn’t hold his own; but that wasn’t his fault, I s’pose. Y’see, he wasn’t strong.”
An old print hanging over the bed attracted his attention, and he regarded it with critical interest for awhile:
“We’ve got a pickcher like that at home. We lived in Jones’s Alley wunst—in that house over there. How d’yer like livin’ in Jones’s Alley?”
“I don’t like it at all. I don’t like having to bring my children up where there are so many bad houses; but I can’t afford to go somewhere else and pay higher rent.”
“Well, there is a good many night-shops round here. But then,” he added, reflectively, “you’ll find them everywheres. An’, besides, the kids git sharp, an’ pick up a good deal in an alley like this; ’twon’t do ’em no harm; it’s no use kids bein’ green if they wanter get on in a city. You ain’t been in Sydney all yer life, have yer?”
“No. We came from the bush, about five years ago. My poor husband thought he could do better in the city. I was brought up in the bush.”’
“I thought yer was. Well, men are sick fools. I’m thinking about gittin’ a billet up-country, myself, soon. Where’s he goin’ ter be buried?”
“At Rookwood, to-morrow.”
“I carn’t come. I’ve got ter work. Is the Guvmint goin’ to bury him?”
“Yes.”