Page:While the Billy Boils, 1913.djvu/74

 deadly poison, called the sentiment of patriotism, had been 'educated' out of the stomachs of the people. 'Patriotism!' he exclaimed scornfully 'My country! The darned fools; the country never belonged to them, but to the speculators, the absentees, land-boomers, swindlers, gangs of thieves―the men the patriotic fools starve and fight for―their masters. Ba-a!'

The opposition collapsed.

The coach had climbed the terraces on the south side of the river, and was bowling along on a level stretch of road across the elevated flat.

'What trees are those?' asked the stranger, breaking the aggressive silence which followed his unpatriotic argument, and pointing to a grove ahead by the roadside. 'They look as if they've been planted there. There ain't been a forest here surely?'

'Oh, they're some trees the Government imported,' said the traveller, whose knowledge on the subject was limited. 'Our own bush won't grow in this soil.'

'But it looks as if anything else would'

Here the stranger sniffed once by accident, and then several times with interest. It was a warm morning after rain. He fixed his eyes on those trees.

They didn't look like Australian gums; they tapered to the tops, the branches were pretty regular, and the boughs hung in ship-shape fashion. There was not the Australian heat to twist the branches and turn the leaves.

'Why!' exclaimed the stranger, still staring and sniffing hard. 'Why, dang me if they ain't (sniff) Australian gums!'