"Sleep well?"
"Yes, thanks," Dick answered. "Why do they call it Tailem Bend?"
"Lots of people ask me that," remarked the conductor. "Some folks say it's a shot at an old native name, but more believe it's because cattle used to be tailed at the bend in the river here in the overlanding days."
"Pity they don't stick to native names when they go christening places in Australia," remarked a man close by. "Murray Bridge used to be Mobilong, and it would have been more sense if they had left it at that. Murray Bridge, indeed. What's the good of a name like that? Here's the Murray, of course, and there's a bridge; so they stick them together and cut out the pretty native name."
"There's some people," said the conductor, nodding assent, "who'd sooner see their own silly names on a signboard than the best native name you could get. That's why you get names like Harrisville and Smithtown, and Wilkins's View all over the map of Australia. Take Belalie now—that's a pretty-sounding native name for you, and it was the name of a town all right. Then comes along some jolly old Governor or something with swelled head and calls it after himself."
"What's that?" queried the other man.
"Jamestown," said the conductor with deep disgust; "Jamestown. And it might have been Belalie. Right, sir, I'm coming." He fled in answer to a fierce call from a sleeping bunk.
Dick realised that he was a little chilly, and peeped into the compartment. His mother was still asleep, and he slipped into his clothes as noiselessly as possible and then went in search of soap and water. Returning presently, he found her sitting up, with a dressing-jacket round her pretty shoulders.
"What, dressed, old man?" she said.
"Rather." Dick seized his brush and made an onslaught upon his wet hair. "We're getting near Murray Bridge, mother—aren't you going to have a look at the Murray?"