"You vill barn de (adj.) snack," continued Theophile, turning politely to me;
"you vill call him shoosteece; mineself, I vill call him revahnsh.
Mineself, I vill not barn de (adj.) snack; I vill be too (adj.) flash.
I vill go to (sheol)."
"Not for your principles, Theophile," I replied, with a courteous inclination of my belltopper.
"Course, it's all in a man's lifetime," pursued Andrew resignedly. "Same time, it seems sort a' hard lines when a man's shoved in the logs for the best three months in the year for a thing he never done. 'Sides, I was on for a good long job with two as decent a fellers as you'd meet in a day's walk. I'd met one o' them ten mile up the river, as it might be this afternoon; an' the fire it took place as it might be to-morrow mornin'."
"But where was you when the fire broke-out?—that's the question," demanded Dave, with a pleasant side-glance round the table.
"Eh?"
"You'll be bumpin' up agen a snag some o' these times, young feller," muttered the bullock driver.
"I was only askin' him where he was when the fire broke out," protested
Somebody's Darling; then in a louder voice he repeated his question.
"Dunno. Somewhere close handy," replied the swagman hopelessly. "Anyhow, I never done it. Well, then, I'd jist got well started to work on Monday mornin', when up comes the bobby, an' grabs me. 'S'pose you'll have to go,' says the missus—for the bosses was both away at another place they got. 'S'pose so,' says I. 'Better take my swag with me anyhow.' Course, by the time my three months was up, things was at the slackest; an' I could n't go straight back to a decent place, an' me fresh out o' chokey. Fact, I can't go back to that district no more. But as luck would have it, I runs butt agen the very man I'd ratherest meet of anybody in the country." The swagman paused, and slowly turned toward me, in evident trouble of mind— "He did n't tell you two blokes I was logged for stack-burnin'?" And the poor fellow's flickering eyes sought my face appealingly.
"Indeed he did n't, mate."
"Why, you let the cat out of the bag yourself!" exclaimed Dave triumphantly.
Then the conversation took a more general turn.