Such Is Life by Tom Collins Page B

tucker-box, and Cooper was just aiming his, when Willoughby, who had shared the frosted mutton, interposed—
    â€œIf you please, Cooper.”
    â€œSeen better days, pore (fellow),” observed Cooper sympathetically, as the ripple of the water into the pannikin indicated that the whaler was at the tap.
    â€œCan’t see much worse,” mused Thompson.
    â€œMy (adj.) oath—can’t he?” chuckled Mosey. “Hold on till he gits old.”
    â€œPeople seem to think Gawd made these here colonies for a rub-bage-heap,” said Bum. “That’s the English idear of”—
    â€œStiddy, Charley,” interrupted Dixon. “Everybody’s got a right to live, an’ that pore (fellow)’s got jist as much right as me or you. A man ought to show respect to misforcune, Charley.”
    â€œShall I bring a pannikin of water for any of you gentlemen?” asked Willoughby, without a trace of ironical emphasis on the last word.
    â€œFetch me one while yer hand’s in,” replied Bum.
    Willoughby brought the drink. I fancied even an accession to the subdued suavity of his manner as he picked up and replaced on the tucker-box the empty pannikin which Burn had thanklessly tossed on the ground at his feet. Then he resumed his place; and Thompson, palpably turning his back on Dixon and Bum, selected him as chief hearer of his recommenced discourse—
    â€œComes as near the blackfellow as it’s possible for a white man to get. And you couldn’t kill him with an axe. Then start him at any civilised work—such as splicing a loop on a wool rope, or making a yoke, or wedging a loose box in a wheel—and he has the best hands in the country. At the same time, it’s plain to be seen that he has been brought up in the class of society that sticks a napkin, in a bone ring, alongside your plate at dinner.” Here Thompson paused, and the recurrence of some distressing memory elicited a half-suppressed sigh.
    â€œThere is nothing unreasonable in that phenomenon,” remarked Willoughby—“rather the reverse. Probably the person you speak of is a gentleman. Now, the man who is a gentleman by birth andculture—by which I mean a man of good family, who has not only gone through the curriculum of a university, but has graduated, so to speak, in society—such a one has every advantage in any conceivable situation. The records of military enterprise, exploration, pioneering, and so forth, furnish abundant evidence of this very obvious fact. You will find, I think, that high breeding and training are conditions of superiority in the human as well as in the equine and canine races; pedigree being, of course, the primary desideratum.
Non generant aquilœ columbas
, we say.”
    â€œDon’t run away with the idear that nobody knows who Columbus was,” retorted Bum. “He discovered America—or else my readin’s did me (adj.) little good.”
    â€œMore power to yer (adj.) elbow, Bum,” said Mosey approvingly. “But, gentleman or no gentleman, if a feller ain’t propped up with cash, this country’ll (adj.) quick fetch him to his proper (adj.) level.”
    â€œPardon me if I differ from you, Mosey,” replied Willoughby blandly. “A few months ago, I travelled the Lachlan with a man fitted by birth and culture to be a leader of society; one whose rightful place would be at least in the front rank of your Australian aristocracy. How do you account for such a man being reduced to solicit the demd pannikin of flour?”
    â€œEasy,” retorted the sansculotte: “the duke had jist settled down to his proper (adj.) level—like the bloke you’ll see in the bottom of a new pannikin when you’re drinkin’ out of it.”
    â€œMosey,” said Cooper impressively; “if I git up off o’ this blanket, I’ll kick”—(I didn’t catch the rest of the sentence).