lly that the other bullock-driver'd run up, and
bills against the other that Billy'd run up, and generally got things
mixed up in various ways, till Billy wished that one of 'em was dead.
And the funniest part of the business was that Billy wasn't no more like
the other man than chalk is like cheese. You'll often drop across some
colour-blind old codger that can't tell the difference between two
people that ain't got a bit of likeness between 'em.

"Then there was young Joe Swallow. He was found dead under a burned-down
tree in Dead Man's Gully--'dead past all recognition,' they said--and he
was buried there, and by and by his ghost began to haunt the gully: at
least, all the schoolkids seen it, and there was scarcely a grown-up
person who didn't know another person who'd seen the ghost--and the
other person was always a sober chap that wouldn't bother about telling
a lie. But just as the ghost was beginning to settle down to work in the
gully, Joe himself turned up, and then the folks began to reckon that
it was another man was killed there, and that the ghost belonged to the
other man; and some of them began to recollect that they'd thought all
along that the ghost wasn't Joe's ghost--even when they thought that it
was really Joe that was killed there.

"Then, again, there was the case of Brummy Usen--Hughison I think they
spelled it--the bushranger; he was shot by old Mr S---, of E---, while
trying to stick the old gentleman up. There's something about it in a
book called 'Robbery Under Arms', though the names is all altered--and
some other time I'll tell you all about the digging of the body up
for the inquest and burying it again. This Brummy used to work for a
publican in a sawmill that the publican had; and this publican and his
daughter identified the body by a woman holding up a branch tattooed
on the right arm. I'll tell you all about that another time. This girl
remembered how she used to watch this tattooed woman going up and down
on Brummy's arm when he was working in the saw-pit--going up and down
and up and down, like this, while Brummy was working his end of the
saw. So the bushranger was inquested and justifiable-homicided as Brummy
Usen, and buried again in his dust and blood stains and monkey-jacket.

"All the same it wasn't him; for the real Brummy turned up later on;
but he couldn't make the people believe he wasn't dead. They was mostly
English country people from Kent and Yorkshire and those plac