d with the home and bind them to it. They'd be a happy
family, and the Lost Souls' Hotel would be more cheerful and homelike
than ever."

"But supposing they all fell in love with each other and cleared out," I
said.

"I don't see what they'd have to clear out for," said Mitchell. "But
suppose they did. There's more than one medical wreck in Australia, and
more than one woman with a past, and more than one broken old clerk who
went wrong and was found out, and who steadied down in jail, and there's
more than one poor girl that's been deceived. I could easily replace
'em. And the Lost Souls' Hotel might be the means of patching up many
wrecked lives in that way--giving people with pasts the chance of
another future, so to speak."

"I suppose you'd have music and books and pictures?" I said.

"Oh, yes," said Mitchell. "But I wouldn't have any bitter or sex-problem
books. They do no good. Problems have been the curse of the world ever
since it started. I think one noble, kindly, cheerful character in a
book does more good than all the clever villains or romantic adventurers
ever invented. And I think a man ought to get rid of his maudlin
sentiment in private, or when he's drunk. It's a pity that every writer
couldn't put all his bitterness into one book and then burn it.

"No; I'd have good cheerful books of the best and brightest sides of
human nature--Charles Dickens, and Mark Twain, and Bret Harte, and those
men. And I'd have all Australian pictures--showing the brightest and
best side of Australian life. And I'd have all Australian songs.
I wouldn't have `Swannie Ribber,' or `Home, Sweet Home,' or
`Annie Laurie,' or any of those old songs sung at the Lost Souls'
Hotel--they're the cause of more heartbreaks and drink and suicide in
the bush than anything else. And if a jackaroo got up to sing, `Just
before the battle, mother,' or, `Mother bit me in me sleep,' he'd find
it was just before the battle all right. He'd have to go out and sleep
in the scrub, where the mosquitoes and bulldog ants would bite him
out of his sleep. I hate the man who's always whining about his mother
through his nose, because, as a rule, he never cared a rap for his old
mother, nor for anyone else, except his own paltry, selfish little self.

"I'd have intellectual and elevating conversation for those that----"

"Who'd take charge of that department?" I inquired hurriedly.

"Well," reflected Mitchell, "I did have an idea of taking it on m