Half an hour later one of the boys returned, bursting with indignant language.  “What for, you blurry fool.  You bin gib it my missis’s trousers?”

DULL-WITTED

At a western station the manager, in order to save a fence newly erected, thought to satisfy the blacks by leaving a loose coil of wire here and there for spear heads.  But instead of taking that generous hint, the natives invariably cut out from the fence what they wanted.  On another station in the same district, when a fence was under construction small coils of loose wire were left every few hundred yards as a tribute or free will offering; but in this case they again overlooked the loose stuff and cut what they wanted from the strained wire.

STRATEGY

Incomprehensibly dull as blacks frequently are they occasionally exhibit shrewdness which is all the more remarkable because of its unexpectedness.  As the station hands were busy erecting buildings in newly opened up country, the blacks sent an envoy to engage their attention while others of the tribe cut off the iron bracing from the paddock gates wherewith to make tomahawks.  They succeeded in completely despoiling one gate before they were disturbed.

LITERAL TRUTH

A black boy of more than ordinary intelligence, who had been sent to fill a couple of tubs with water, sauntered back with a self-satisfied air and said—­“Me finish ’em!”

The master found that the boy, as a preliminary, had fitted one tub into the other.

MAGIC THAT DID NOT WORK

Under the spell of the first sensations of Christianity, Lucy found and took unauthorised possession of a gold cross.  Retiring to a secluded spot on the bank of the river, she hung the cross to a string round her neck, imagining it to be a charm, by the magic of which she would become a white girl.  Twenty-four hours of patient expectancy passed without any change in Lucy’s complexion, so she lost faith in the golden symbol, and bartered it to a Malay pieman for cakes.  Then good Christian folks charged her with the theft of the cross, and the pieman with receiving it, knowing it to have been stolen.  Lucy was pardoned, but the pagan went to prison.

ANTI-CLIMAX

A boy was asked if he thought Jimmy Governor (a notorious desperado who had given the New South Wales police much trouble) ought to be hanged.  “Baal.  No fear hang ’em; too good.”

“What you do then?”

“Me! me punch ’em nose!”

LITTLE FELLA CREEK SAILOR

Ponto, a boy well known in North Queensland, and one of the few aboriginals whose memory is honoured by tombstones, was once taken by his master to Sydney.  He saw many wonders, being particularly impressed by the appearance of the men-of-war’s-men.