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“Then she let everyone know that Bridget Page was engaged to Jack Mitchell, and told her friends that she went down on her knees every night and thanked the Lord for getting the love of a good man. Didn’t the fellows chyack me, though! My sisters were raving mad about it, for their chums kept asking them how they liked their new sister, and when it was going to come off, and who’d be bridesmaids and best man, and whether they weren’t surprised at their brother Jack’s choice; and then I’d gammon at home that it was all true.

“At last the place got too hot for me. I got sick of dodging that girl. I sent a mate of mine to tell her that it was all a joke, and that I was already married in secret; but she didn’t see it, then I cleared, and got a job in Newcastle, but had to leave there when my mates sent me the office that she was coming. I wouldn’t wonder but what she is humping her swag after me now. In fact, I thought you was her in disguise when I set eyes on you first….You needn’t get mad about it; I don’t mean to say that you’re quite as ugly as she was, because I never saw a man that was–or a woman either. Anyway, I’ll never ask a woman to marry me again unless I’m ready to marry her.”

Then Mitchell’s mate told a yarn.

“I knew a case once something like the one you were telling me about; the landlady of a hash-house where I was stopping in Albany told me. There was a young carpenter staying there, who’d run away from Sydney from an old maid who wanted to marry him. He’d cleared from the church door, I believe. He was scarcely more’n a boy–about nineteen–and a soft kind of a fellow, something like you, only good-looking–that is, he was passable. Well, as soon as the woman found out where he’d gone, she came after him. She turned up at the boarding-house one Saturday morning when Bobbie was at work; and the first thing she did was to rent a double room from the landlady and buy some cups and saucers to start housekeeping with. When Bobbie came home he just gave her one look and gave up the game.

“‘Get your dinner, Bobbie,’ she said, after she’d slobbered over him a bit, ‘and then get dressed and come with me and get married!’

“She was about three times his age, and had a face like that picture of a lady over Sappho Smith’s letters in the Sydney Bulletin.

“Well, Bobbie went with her like a–like a lamb; never gave a kick or tried to clear.”

“Hold on,” said Mitchell, “did you ever shear lambs?”

“Never mind. Let me finish the yarn. Bobbie was married; but she wouldn’t let him out of her sight all that afternoon, and he had to put up with her before them all. About bedtime he sneaked out and started along the passage to his room that he shared with two or three mates. But she’d her eye on him.

“‘Bobbie, Bobbie!’ she says, ‘Where are you going?’

“‘I’m going to bed,’ said Bobbie. ‘Good night!’

“‘Bobbie, Bobbie,’ she says, sharply. ‘That isn’t our room; this is our room, Bobbie. Come back at once! What do you mean, Bobbie? Do you hear me, Bobbie?‘

“So Bobbie came back, and went in with the scarecrow. Next morning she was first at the breakfast table, in a dressing-gown and curl papers. And when they were all sitting down Bobbie sneaked in, looking awfully sheepish, and sidled for his chair at the other end of the table. But she’d her eyes on him.

“‘Bobbie, Bobbie!’ she said, ‘Come and kiss me, Bobbie!'” And he had to do it in front of them all.

“But I believe she made him a good wife.”

[THE END]

Notes on Australianisms