It was said in good earnest enough, even Watty and George had to admit. It was either the best bit of bluff they had ever listened to, or else Jun, for once in a way, was enjoying the luxury of telling the truth.
"We're all good triers here, Jun," George said, "but we're not as green as we're painted."
Jun regarded his beer meditatively; then he said:
"Look here, you chaps, suppose I put it to you straight: I ain't always been what you might call the clean potato ... but I ain't always been married, either. Well, I'm married now—married to the best little girl ever I struck...."
The idea of Jun taking married life seriously amused two or three of the men. Smiles began to go round, and broadened as he talked. That they did not please Jun was evident.
"Well, seein' I've taken on family responsibilities," he went on—"Was you smiling, Watty?"
"Me? Oh, no, Jun," the offender replied, meekly; "it was only the stummick-ache took me. It does that way sometimes. You mightn't think so, but I always look as if I was smilin' when I've got the stummick-ache."
George Woods, Pony-Fence Inglewood, and some of the others laughed, taking Watty's explanation for what it was worth. But Jun continued solemnly, playing the reformed blackguard to his own satisfaction.
"Seein' I've taken on family responsibilities, I want to run straight. I don't want my kids to think there was anything crook about their dad."
If he moved no one else, he contrived to feel deeply moved himself at the prospect of how his unborn children were going to regard him. The men who had always more or less believed in him managed to convince themselves that Jun meant what he said. George and Watty realised he had put up a good case, that he was getting at them in the only way possible.