Page:Triangles of life, and other stories.djvu/254

 And the mighty burst of joyous profanity when two Bush mates meet after a separation of some years!

Visiting an old mate in the hospital! The broad grins! Bill wasn't used to being fixed up like that in the old days, with pretty nurses, in caps and uniforms, gliding round him. But there was a woman——

Bill-o'-th'-Bush being dead, Jim and mates bury him, and Jim blubbers and is unashamed. Later it is Jim's sad duty to take round the hat and gather in the quids for poor Bill's missus and kids. And Jim sticks to them, and helps them all he can; though Bill's missus always hated Jim like poison, and Jim "could never stand her."

In ordinary cases, when a man or woman is in a hole—and the man need not be a saint, nor the woman any better than she ought to be, either—the hat is started round with bad swear words of unnecessary vehemence, lest some —— might cherish a suspicion that there is any —— sentiment behind it at all. "Chuck in half a quid and give the poor —— a show! "

Another kind of case—a little story of two men who went up and down in the world. One mate went up because Fortune took a fancy to him, and he didn't discredit Fortune; the other went down because he drank, and Luck forbore to camp by his fire. In later years the pair came together, and the mate who was up gave the mate who was down a billet in his business in town, and bore with him with boundless patience, and took him back time and again. And it came to