Then
he congratulated the Maluka on the size of his missus.
"Gimme the little 'uns," he said, nearly wringing my hand off in his
approval. "You can't beat 'em for pluck. My missus is one of 'em, and she
went bush with me when I'd nothing but a skeeto net and a quart-pot to
share with her." Then, slapping the Maluka vigorously on the back, he
told him he'd got some sense left. "You can't beat the little 'uns," he
declared. "They're just the very thing."
The Maluka agreed with him, and after some comical quizzing, they
decided, to their own complete satisfaction, that although the bushman's
"missus" was the "littlest of all little 'uns, straight up and down," the
Maluka's "knocked spots off her sideways."
But although the Territory train does not need to bend its neck to the
galling yoke of a minute time-table, yet, like all bush-whackers, it
prefers to strike its supper camp before night-fall, and after allowing
us a good ten minutes' chat, it blew a deferential "Ahem" from its
engine, as a hint that it would like to be "getting along." The bushman
took the hint, and after a hearty "Good luck, missus!" and a "chin, chin,
old man," left us, with assurances that "her size 'ud do the trick.
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