Page:Bush Studies (1902).djvu/112

100 It was dusk, but through it she saw that the woman was dusky too.

"Boss in, Lizer?" There was contrition and propitiation in his voice.

"You've bin a nice blanky time," said his missus, "an' lucky fer you, Billy Skywonkie, 'e ain't."

With bowed head, his shoulders making kindly efforts to hide his ears, he sat silent and listening respectfully. The woman in the buggy thought that the volubility of the angry half-caste's tongue was the nearest thing to perpetual motion. Under her orders both got down, and from a seat under the open window in the little room to which Lizer had motioned, she gave respectful attention to the still rapidly flowing tirade. The offence had been some terrible injustice to a respectable married woman, "slavin' an' graftin' an' sweatin' from mornin' ter night, for a slungin' idlin' lazy blaggard." In an indefinable way the woman felt that both of them were guilty, and to hide from her part of the reproof was mean and cowardly. The half-caste from time to time included her, and by degrees she understood that the wasted time of which Lizer complained was supposed to have been dissipated in