"It is neither, my man," he said; "neither
a circus, nor a Wild West Show. This is the land the poets sing about,
the land where dull despair is king."
Brown of the Bulls naturally wished "some of the poets were about now,"
and Dan, having joined the house party, found a fitting opportunity to
air one of his pet grievances.
"I've never done wishing some of them town chaps that write bush yarns
'ud come along and learn a thing or two," he said. "Most of 'em seem to
think that when we're not on the drink we're whipping the cat or
committing suicide." Rarely had Dan any excuse to offer for those "town
chaps," who, without troubling to learn "a thing or two," first, depict
the bush as a pandemonium of drunken orgies, painted women, low revenge,
remorse, and suicide; but being in a more magnanimous mood than usual, as
the men-folk flocked towards the Quarters he waited behind to add,
unconscious of any irony: "Of course, seeing it's what they're used to in
town, you can't expect 'em to know any better."
Then in the Quarters "Luck to our neighbour" was the toast--"luck," and
the hope that all his ventures might be as successfully carried through
as his practical joke.
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