Flushing
hotly, he rose, and "thought he would turn in "; and Dan, who had been
discussing education most of the evening, decided to "bottle off a bit of
sleep too for next day's use," and opened up his swag.
"There's one thing about not being too good at the reading trick," he
said, surveying his permanent property: "a chap doesn't need to carry
books round with him to put in the spare time."
"Exactly," the Maluka laughed. He was Iying on his back, with an open
book face downwards on his chest, looking up at the stars. He always had
a book with him, but, book-lover as he was, it rarely got farther than
his chest when we were in camp. Life out-bush is more absorbing than
books.
"Of course reading's handy enough for them as don't lay much stock on
education," Dan owned, stringing his net between his mosquito-pegs, then,
struck with a new idea, he "wondered why the missus never carries books
round. Any one 'ud think she wasn't much at the reading trick herself,"
he said. "Never see you at it, missus, when I'm round."
"Lay too much stock on education," I answered, and, chuckling, Dan
retired into his net, little guessing that when he was "round," his own
self, his quaint outlook on life, and the underlying truth of his
inexhaustible, whimsical philosophy, were infinitely more interesting
than the best book ever written.
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