Page:While the Billy Boils, 1913.djvu/326

 'But the wife of the publican that had the saw-pit knew him; he went to her, and she recognised him at once; she'd got it into her head from the first that it wasn't Brummy that was shot, and she stuck to it―she was just as self-opinionated as the neighbours, and many a barney she had with them about it. She would argue about it till the day she died, and then she said with her dying breath: 'It wasn't Brummy Usen.' No more it was―he was a different kind of man; he hadn't spunk enough to be a bushranger, and it was a better man that was buried for him; it was a different kind of woman, holding up a different kind of a branch, that was tattooed on Brummy's arm. But, you see, Brummy'd always kept himself pretty much to himself, and no one knew him very well; and, besides, most of them were pretty drunk at the inquest―except the girl, and she was too scared to know what she was saying―they had to be so because the corpse was in such a bad state.

'Well, Brummy hung round for a time, and tried to prove that he wasn't an impostor, but no one wouldn't believe him. He wanted to get some wages that was owing to him.

'He tried the police, but they were just as obstinate as the rest; and, beside, they had their dignity to hold up. 'If I ain't Brummy,' he'd say, 'who are I?' But they answered that he knew best. So he did.

'At last he said that it didn't matter much, any-road; and so he went away―Lord knows where―to begin life again, I s'pose.'

The traveller smoked awhile reflectively; then he