English Bill would rob his mother of her winding-sheet.
Flynn would fight his own shadow and get the best of it.
The three of us were mates, and we were engaged on a special job, blasting a rock facing, in the corner of a secluded cutting. There was very little room for movement, and we had to do the job all by ourselves. One evening we set seven charges of dynamite in the holes which we had drilled during the day, put the fuses alight, and hurried off to a place of safety, and there waited until the explosion was over. While the thunder of the riven earth was still in our ears the ganger blew his whistle, the signal to cease work and return to our shacks.
Next morning Bill reappeared wearing a strong heavily-soled pair of new bluchers which he had purchased on the evening previously.
"They're a good pair of understandings, Bill," I said, as I examined my mate's boots with a feeling of envy.
"A damned good pair!" said Moleskin ruefully, looking at his own bare toes peeping through the ragged leather of his emaciated uppers.
Bill's face glowed with pride as he lifted his pick and proceeded to clean out the refuse from the rock face. Bill was always in a hurry to start work, and Joe often prophesied that the man would come to a bad end. On this morning Joe was in a bad temper, for he had drunk too well the night before.
"Stow it, you fool," he growled at Bill. "You're a damned hasher, and no ganger within miles of you!"
Bill made no reply, but lifted his pick and drove it into the rock which we had blasted on the day before. As he struck the ground there was a deadly roar; the pick whirled round, sprung upwards, twirled in the air like a wind-swept straw, and entered Bill's throat just a finger's breadth below the Adam's apple. One of the dynamite charges had failed to explode on the previous day, and Bill had struck it with the point of the pick, and with this tool which had earned him his livelihood for many years sticking in his throat he stood for a moment swaying unsteadily. He laughed awkwardly as if ashamed of what had happened, then dropped silently to the ground. The pick slipped out, a red foam bubbled on the man's lips for a second, and that was all.
The sight unnerved us for a moment, but we quickly recovered. We had looked on death many times, and our virgin terror was now almost lost.