Page:Over the Sliprails - 1900.djvu/95

 “No, I’m dashed if I can,” I said. “Some of us must be drunk, I think, or getting rats. It’s not to be wondered at, and the sooner we get out of this country the better.”

“Well, you must be a fool, Joe,” said Mitchell. “Can’t you see? Alf thinks aloud.”

“What?”

“Talks to himself. He was thinking about going back to his sweetheart. Don’t you know he’s a bit of a ventriloquist?”

Mitchell lay awake a long time, in the position that Alf usually lay in, and thought. Perhaps he thought on the same lines as Alf did that night. But Mitchell did his thinking in silence.

We thought it best to tell the Oracle quietly. He was deeply interested, but not surprised. “I’ve heerd of such cases before,” he said. But the Oracle was a gentleman. “There’s things that a man wants to keep to himself that ain’t his business,” he said. And we understood this remark to be intended for our benefit, and to indicate a course of action upon which the Oracle had decided, with respect to this case, and which we, in his opinion, should do well to follow.

Alf got away a week or so later, and we all took a holiday and went down to Fremantle to see him off. Perhaps he wondered why Mitchell gripped his hand so hard and wished him luck so earnestly, and was surprised when he gave him three cheers.

“Ah, well!” remarked Mitchell, as we turned up the wharf.