“She was a beauty, and no mistake; she was far too good for me—I often wondered how she came to have a chap like me.”
He paused again, and the others thought over it—and wondered too, perhaps.
The joker opened his lips to speak, but altered his mind about it.
“Well, I travelled up into Queensland, and worked back into Victoria ’n’ South Australia, an’ I wrote home pretty reg’lar and sent what money I could. Last I got down on to the south-western coast of South Australia—an’ there I got mixed up with another woman—you know what that means, boys?”
Sympathetic silence.
“Well, this went on for two years, and then the other woman drove me to drink. You know what a woman can do when the devil’s in her?”
Sound between a sigh and a groan from Lally Thompson. “My oath,” he said, sadly.
“You should have made it three years, Jack,” interposed the joker; “you said two years before.” But he was suppressed.
“Well, I got free of them both, at last—drink and the woman, I mean; but it took another—it took a couple of years to pull myself straight—”
Here the joker opened his mouth again, but was warmly requested to shut it.