While escorting him to the lockup, the officer in charge remarked—­ “Well, Billy, you lucky fella.  You only get three months.  I been think you in for a sixer.”

Billy—­“By golly, Jack, me bin think me be disqualified for life.”

MICKIE’S VERSION

Mickie is apt at repeating the sayings of others.  Often his rendering of a commonplace becomes humorous by reason of a slight verbal twist.  As the boys toiled to supplant a glorious strip of primeval jungle by a few formal rows of bananas, the boss, glancing over the ruined vegetation, remarked in encouraging tones

“Well, we are getting on fine!  Getting on like a house on fire!”

For half an hour or so the boys hacked and chopped away at the vines and trees, and then Mickie swept the scene with a comprehensive glance, saying—­“We getting on good fella now.  All a same burning down house.”

HONOURABLE JOHNNY

Johnny was much averse from work.  “Work, work, work, all asame bullocky,” as he put it, rasped on his feelings.  At midday he was taking his case, while others toiled packing stones on a breakwater.  One of them called out—­“Why you no work, Johnny?  You sit down all the time.”  Johnny—­“Me bin work close up daylight.  You lazy black niggers only work when Boss look out.”

THE TRANSFORMATION

The wife of a squatter was about to leave the station for a few years, that her daughters might have the opportunity of acquiring accomplishments unobtainable in the Bush.  When the hour of departure arrived, the blacks about the place loudly expressed their sorrow.  One softhearted creature exclaimed amid the tears—­“Good-bye, Miss Madge—­good-bye, Miss Yola; me no see little girls any more.  Two fella going away, try learn be lady!”

MONEY-MAKING TRICK

A boy who had visited a town and had been taken to a circus, gathered the camp together on the night of his return, and having given an account of the wonders he had seen, announced that he could make money.  Satisfaction at such gift being tempered by doubt, the boy took his stand before the expectant semicircle, and having admirably mimicked a conjuror’s patter, shouted—­“Money!” A half-crown flashed in the air-to be deftly caught and exhibited on the boy’s palm.

This trick was repeated nightly.  Conscious of the independence that money gives, the whole camp became demoralised, until investigation showed that the boy had a trained confederate in the person of his gin, who, standing apart, on the word, flicked the half-crown in the air.  The boy lost his reputation as a maker of money, and his sole coin that self-same night.

HONOURABLE CHASTISEMENT