But old
Mac caught the awesome name and glared round, so they hurriedly filled
out another for him, from the boss's bottle. Then there was a slight
commotion. The housemaid hurried scaredly in to the bar behind and
whispered to the boss. She had been startled nearly out of her wits by
the Professor suddenly appearing at his bedroom door and calling upon
her to have a stiff nobbler of whisky hot sent up to his room. The
jackaroo yard-boy, aforesaid, volunteered to take it up, and while he
was gone there were hints of hysterics from the kitchen, and the boss
whispered in his turn to the crowd over the bar. The jackaroo just
handed the tray and glass in through the partly opened door, had a
glimpse of pyjamas, and, after what seemed an interminable wait, he came
tiptoeing into the bar amongst its awe-struck haunters with an air of
great mystery, and no news whatever.

They fixed old Mac on a shake-down in the Commercial Room, where he'd
have light and some overflow guests on the sofas for company. With a
last whisky in the bar, and a stiff whisky by his side on the floor, he
was understood to chuckle to the effect that he knew he was all right
when he'd won "the keystone o' the brig." Though how a wooden bridge
with a level plank floor could have a keystone I don't know--and they
were too much impressed by the event of the evening to inquire. And so,
with a few cases of hysterics to occupy the attention of the younger
women, some whimpering of frightened children and comforting or
chastened nagging by mothers, some unwonted prayers muttered secretly
and forgettingly, and a good deal of subdued blasphemy, Cunnamulla sank
to its troubled slumbers--some of the sleepers in the commercial and
billiard-rooms and parlours at the Royal, to start up in a cold sweat,
out of their beery and hypnotic nightmares, to find Harry Chatswood
making elaborate and fearsome passes over them with his long, gaunt arms
and hands, and a flaming red table-cloth tied round his neck.

To be done with old Mac, for the present. He made one or two more trips,
but always by daylight, taking care to pick up a swagman or a tramp
when he had no passenger; but his "conveections" had had too much of a
shaking, so he sold his turnout (privately and at a distance, for it
was beginning to be called "the haunted van") and returned to his
teams--always keeping one of the lads with him for company. He reckoned
it would take the devil's own hypnotism to move a loa