“Then, chaps, I got thinking. My conscience began to hurt me, and—and hurt worse every day. It nearly drove me to drink again. Ah, boys, a man—if he is a man—can’t expect to wrong a woman and escape scot-free in the end.” (Sigh from Lally Thompson.) “It’s the one thing that always comes home to a man, sooner or later—you know what that means, boys.”
Lally Thompson: “My oath!”
The joker: “Dry up yer crimson oath! What do you know about women?”
Cries of “Order!”
“Well,” continued the story-teller, “I got thinking. I heard that my wife had broken her heart when I left her, and that made matters worse. I began to feel very bad about it. I felt mean. I felt disgusted with myself. I pictured my poor, ill-treated, little wife and children in misery and poverty, and my conscience wouldn’t let me rest night or day”—(Lally Thompson seemed greatly moved)—“so at last I made up my mind to be a man, and make—what’s the word?”
“Reparation,” suggested the joker.
“Yes, so I slaved like a nigger for a year or so, got a few pounds together and went to find my wife. I found out that she was living in a cottage in Burwood, Sydney, and struggling through the winter on what she’d saved from the money her father left her.
“I got a shave and dressed up quiet and decent. I was older-looking and more subdued like, and I’d got pretty grey in those few years that I’d been making a fool of myself; and, some how, I felt rather glad about it, because I reckoned she’d notice it first thing—she was always quick at noticing things—and forgive me all the quicker. Well, I waylaid the school kids that evening, and found out mine—a little boy and a girl—and fine youngsters they were. The girl took after her mother, and the youngster was the dead spit o’ me. I gave ’em half a crows each and told them to tell their mother that someone would come when the sun went down.”
Bogan Bill nodded approvingly.
“So at sundown I went and knocked at the door. It opened and there stood my little wife looking prettier than ever—only careworn.”