We turned in feeling comfortably dismal, and almost wishing that we had gone down with the Dunbar.
The intoxicated shearers and the dude kept their concert up till a late hour that night—or, rather, a very early hour next morning; and at about midnight they were reinforced by the commercial traveller and Moses, the jeweller, who had been visiting acquaintances aft. This push was encouraged by voices from various bunks, and enthusiastically barracked for by a sandy-complexioned, red-headed comedian with twinkling grey eyes, who occupied the berth immediately above our own.
They stood with their backs to the bunks, and their feet braced against the deck, or lurched round, and took friendly pulls from whisky flasks, and chyacked each other, and laughed, and blowed, and lied like—like Australian bushmen; and occasionally they broke out into snatches of song—and as often broke down. Few Englishmen know more than the first verse, or two lines, of even their most popular song, and, where elevated enough to think they can sing, they repeat the first verse over and over again, with the wrong words, and with a sort of “Ta-ra-ra-rum-ti-tooral, ta-ra-ra-ra-ra-rum-ti, ta-ra-ra-rum-tum-ti-rum-rum-tum-ti-dee-e-e,” by way of variation.
Presently—suddenly, it seemed to our drowsy senses—two of the shearers and the bagman commenced arguing with drunken gravity and precision about politics, even while a third bushman was approaching the climax of an out-back yarn of many adjectives, of which he himself was the hero. The scraps of conversation that we caught were somewhat as follow. We leave out most of the adjectives.
First Voice: “Now, look here. The women will vote for men, not principles. That’s why I’m against women voting. Now, just mark my—-”
Third Voice (trying to finish yarn): “Hold on. Just wait till I tell yer. Well, this bloomin’ bloke, he says—-”
Second Voice (evidently in reply to first): “Principles you mean, not men. You’re getting a bit mixed, old man.” (Smothered chuckle from comedian over our head.)
Third Voice (seeming to drift round in search of sympathy): “‘You will!’ sez I. ‘Yes, I will,’ he sez. ‘Oh, you will, will yer?’ I sez; and with that I—-”
Second Voice (apparently wandering from both subjects) “Blanker has always stuck up for the workin’ man, an’ he’ll get in, you’ll see. Why, he’s a bloomin’ workin’ man himself. Me and Blanker—-”
Disgusted voice from a bunk: “Oh, that’s damn rot! We’ve had enough of lumpers in parliament! Horny hands are all right enough, but we don’t want any more blanky horny heads!”