ll
tells up by the end o' the year.

An' a straight chap that knows me gets a job to take a flock o' sheep
or a mob o' cattle ter the bloomin' Gulf, or South Australia, or
somewheers--an' loses one of his horses goin' out ter take charge, an'
borrers eight quid from me ter buy another. He'll turn up agen in a
year or two an' most likely want ter make me take twenty quid for that
eight--an' make everybody about the place blind drunk--but I've got ter
wait, an' the wine an' sperit merchants an' the brewery won't. They know
I can't do without liquor in the place.

An' lars' rains Jimmy Nowlett, the bullick-driver, gets bogged over
his axle-trees back there on the Blacksoil Plains between two flooded
billerbongs, an' prays till the country steams an' his soul's busted,
an' his throat like a lime-kiln. He taps a keg o' rum or beer ter keep
his throat in workin' order. I don't mind that at all, but him an' his
mates git flood-bound for near a week, an' broach more kegs, an' go on
a howlin' spree in ther mud, an' spill mor'n they swipe, an' leave a
tarpaulin off a load, an' the flour gets wet, an' the sugar runs out of
the bags like syrup, an'-- What's a feller ter do? Do yer expect me to
set the law onter Jimmy? I've knowed him all my life, an' he knowed my
father afore I was born. He's been on the roads this forty year, till
he's as thin as a rat, and as poor as a myall black; an' he's got a
family ter keep back there in Bourke. No, I have ter pay for it in the
end, an' it all mounts up, I can tell yer.

An' suppose some poor devil of a new-chum black sheep comes along,
staggerin' from one side of the track to the other, and spoutin' poetry;
dyin' o' heat or fever, or heartbreak an' home-sickness, or a life o'
disserpation he'd led in England, an' without a sprat on him, an' no
claim on the bush; an' I ketches: him in me arms as he stumbles inter
the bar, an' he wants me ter hold him up while he turns English inter
Greek for me. An' I put him ter bed, an' he gits worse, an' I have ter
send the buggy twenty mile for a doctor--an' pay him. An' the jackaroo
gits worse, an' has ter be watched an' nursed an' held down sometimes;
an' he raves about his home an' mother in England, an' the blarsted
University that he was eddicated at--an' a woman--an' somethin' that
sounds like poetry in French; an' he upsets my missus a lot, an' makes
her blubber. An' he dies, an' I have ter pay a man ter bury him (an'
knock up a sort o' fence r