A Sketch.
PART I.
They were all very sore at Barracaboo station. From manager to horse-boy, from jackaroo to boundary-rider, they felt aggrieved and vengeful. First it had been ‘Around the World by Sea and Land,’ copiously illustrated, and in monthly parts. This was dull—unutterably dull—and each instalment turned out duller and heavier than the last. Also, the pictures resembled those on the specimen sheets as nearly as a mule does a grindstone.
After this came ‘Diseases of All Known Domestic Animals,’ with gorgeously coloured pictures. As nothing could be found in the whole work relating to horses or cattle or dogs, except the illustrations, this was also voted a fraud. However, they cut out the plates, and stuck them upon the walls of the huts and cottages, so that it was not clear loss altogether.
[Illustration: Started back to Atlanta, pursued for half the distance with thunderous whip-crackings. ([Page 194].)]
But the last straw was ‘The Universal Biography of Eminent Men—Dead and Alive,’ with splendid portraits. [193] ]When they discovered that the notices they had been led to expect of their own ‘Boss,’ ‘Hungry’ Parkes of Humpalong, the Mayor of Atlanta, etc., etc., were absent, and their places filled by paragraphs and woodcuts relating to Nelson, Julius Cæsar, Pompey, Scipio Africanus, and such-like characters, they one and all bucked, and refused to pay on delivery. Then they were hauled to Quarter Sessions, confronted with their signatures, and made to pay.
In vain they swore that the thing had never been ordered; that it wasn’t up to specification; that their handwriting was a palpable forgery. In vain they related how they had never touched it, but had left their copies lying on verandahs, stockyard posts, in mud, in dust, wherever, in fact, the agent had chanced to bail them up. All in vain; they had to pay—costs and all.