Page:While the Billy Boils, 1913.djvu/37

 'Now, look here!' he said, sternly and impressively, 'can you see anything wrong with that old swag o' mine?'

It was a stout, dumpy swag, with a red blanket outside, patched with blue, and the edge of a blue blanket showing in the inner rings at the end. The swag might have been newer; it might have been cleaner; it might have been hooped with decent straps, instead of bits of clothes-line and greenhide―but otherwise there was nothing the matter with it, as swags go.

'I've humped that old swag for years,' continued the bushman; 'I've carried that old swag thousands of miles―as that old dog knows―an' no one ever bothered about the look of it, or of me, or of my old dog, neither; and do you think I'm going to be ashamed of that old swag, for a cabby or anyone else? Do you think I'm going to study anybody's feelings? No one ever studied mine! I'm in two minds to summon you for using insulting language towards me!'

He lifted the swag by the twisted towel which served for a shoulder-strap, swung it into the cab, got in himself and hauled the dog after him.

'You can drive me somewhere where I can leave my swag and dog while I get some decent clothes to see a tailor in,' he said to the cabman. 'My old dog ain't used to cabs, you see.'

Then he added, reflectively: 'I drove a cab myself, once, for five years in Sydney.'