but afterwards shared the pay with him as with Mitchell. O'Briar
shouted--judiciously, but on every possible occasion--for the Oracle;
and, as he was an indifferent workman, the boys said he only did this so
that the Oracle might keep him on. If O'Briar took things easy and did
no more than the rest of us, at least one of us would be sure to get it
into his head that he was loafing on us; and if he grafted harder than
we did, we'd be sure to feel indignant about that too, and reckon that
it was done out of nastiness or crawlsomeness, and feel a contempt for
him accordingly. We found out accidentally that O'Briar was an excellent
mimic and a bit of a ventriloquist, but he never entertained us with his
peculiar gifts; and we set that down to churlishness.

O'Briar kept his own counsel, and his history, if he had one; and hid
his hopes, joys, and sorrows, if he had any, behind a vacant grin,
as Mitchell hid his behind a quizzical one. He never resented alleged
satire--perhaps he couldn't see it--and therefore he got the name of
being a cur. As a rule, he was careful with his money, and was called
mean--not, however, by the Oracle, whose philosophy was simple, and
whose sympathy could not realise a limit; nor yet by Mitchell. Mitchell
waited.

. . . . .

O'Briar occupied a small tent by himself, and lived privately of
evenings. When we began to hear two men talking at night in his tent,
we were rather surprised, and wondered in a vague kind of way how any of
the chaps could take sufficient interest in Alf to go in and yarn with
him. In the days when he was supposed to be sociable, we had voted him a
bore; even the Oracle was moved to admit that he was "a bit slow".

But late one night we distinctly heard a woman's voice in O'Briar's
tent. The Oracle suddenly became hard of hearing, and, though we heard
the voice on several occasions, he remained exasperatingly deaf, yet
aggressively unconscious of the fact. "I have got enough to do puzzling
over me own whys and wherefores," he said. Mitchell began to take some
interest in O'Briar, and treated him with greater respect. But our camp
had the name of being the best-constructed, the cleanest, and the most
respectable in the vicinity. The health officer and constable in charge
had complimented us on the fact, and we were proud of it. And there were
three young married couples in camp, also a Darby and Joan; therefore,
when the voice of a woman began to be heard fr