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“And, of course, I’d have to have a ‘character’ about the place–a sort of identity and joker to brighten up things. I wouldn’t get a man who’d been happy and comfortable all his life; I’d get hold of some old codger whose wife had nagged him till she died, and who’d been sold off many times, and run in for drowning his sorrows, and who started as an undertaker and failed at that, and finally got a job pottering round–gardener, or gatekeeper, or something–in a lunatic asylum. I’d get him. He’d most likely be a humorist and a philosopher, and he’d help cheer up the Lost Souls’ Hotel. I reckon the lost souls would get very fond of him.”

“And would you have drink at Lost Souls’?” I asked.

“Yes,” said Mitchell. “I’d have the best beer and spirits and wine to be had. After tea I’d let every man have just enough to make him feel comfortable and happy, and as good and clever, and innocent and honest as any other man, but no more. But if a poor devil came along in the horrors, with every inch of him jumping, and snakes, and green-eyed yahoos, and flaming-nosed bunyips chasing him, we’d take him in and give him soothing draughts, and nurse him, and watch him, and clear him out with purgatives, and keep giving him nips of good whisky, and, above all, we’d sympathize with him, and tell him that we were worse than he was many a time. We wouldn’t tell him what a weak, selfish man he was, or harp on his ruined life. We’d try to make him out a good deal better morally than he really was. It’s remorse that hurries most men to hell–especially in the Bush. When a man firmly believes he is a hopeless case, then there’s no hope for him: but let him have doubts and there’s a chance. Make him believe that there are far worse cases than his. We wouldn’t preach the sin of dissipation to him, no–but we’d try to show him the folly of a wasted life. I ought to be able to preach that, God knows.

“And, above all, we’d try to drive out of his head the cursed old popular idea that it’s hard to reform–that a man’s got to fight a hard battle with himself to get away from drink–pity drunkards can’t believe how easy it is. And we’d put it to him straight whether his few hours’ enjoyment were worth the days he had to suffer hell for it.”

“And, likely as not,” I said, “when you’d put him on his feet he’d take the nearest track to the next shanty, and go on a howling spree, and come back to Lost Souls’ in a week, raving aid worse than ever. What would you do then?”

“We’d take him in again, and build him up some more; and a third or fourth time if necessary. I believe in going right on with a thing once I take it in hand. And if he didn’t turn up after the last spree we’d look for him up the scrub and bring him in and let him die on a bed, and make his death as comfortable as possible. I’ve seen one man die on the ground, and found one dead in the bush. We’d bury him under a gum and put ‘Sacred to the Memory of a Man who Died. (Let him R.I.P.)’ over him. I’d have a nice little graveyard, with gums for tombstones–and I’d have some original epitaphs–I promise you.”

“And how much gratitude would you expect to get out of the Lost Souls’ Hotel?” I asked.

“None,” said Mitchell, promptly. “It wouldn’t be a Gratitude Discovery Syndicate. People might say that the Lost Souls’ Hotel was a den for kidnapping women and girls to be used as decoys for the purpose of hocussing and robbing bushmen, and the law and retribution might come after me–but I’d fight the thing out. Or they might want to make a K.C.M.G., or a god of me, and worship me before they hung me. I reckon a philanthropist or reformer is lucky if he escapes with a whole skin in the end, let alone his character— But there!— Talking of gratitude: it’s the fear of ingratitude that keeps thousands from doing good. It’s just as paltry and selfish and cowardly as any other fear that curses the world–it’s rather more selfish than most fears, in fact–take the fear of being thought a coward, or being considered eccentric, or conceited, or affected, or too good, or too bad, for instance. The man that’s always canting about the world’s ingratitude has no gratitude owing to him as a rule–generally the reverse–he ought to be grateful to the world for being let live. He broods over the world’s ingratitude until he gets to be a cynic. He sees the world like the outside of a window, as it were, with the blind drawn and the dead, cold moonlight shining on it, and he passes on with a sour face; whereas, if he took the trouble to step inside he’d most likely find a room full of ruddy firelight, and sympathy and cheerfulness, and kindness, and love, and gratitude. Sometimes, when he’s right down on his uppers, and forced to go amongst people and hustle for bread, he gets a lot of surprises at the amount of kindness he keeps running against in the world–and in places where he’d never have expected to find it. But–ah, well! I’m getting maudlin.”