member.

THE BLINDNESS OF ONE-EYED BOGAN

They judge not and they are not judged--'tis their philosophy--
(There's something wrong with every ship that sails upon the sea).
-The Ballad of the Rouseabout.

"And what became of One-eyed Bogan?" I asked Tom Hall when I met him and
Jack Mitchell down in Sydney with their shearing cheques the Christmas
before last.

"You'd better ask Mitchell, Harry," said Tom. "He can tell you about
Bogan better than I can. But first, what about the drink we're going to
have?"

We turned out of Pitt Street into Hunter Street, and across George
Street, where a double line of fast electric tramway was running, into
Margaret Street and had a drink at Pfahlert's Hotel, where a counter
lunch--as good as many dinners you get for a shilling--was included with
a sixpenny drink. "Get a quiet corner," said Mitchell, "I like to bear
myself cackle." So we took our beer out in the fernery and got a cool
place at a little table in a quiet corner amongst the fern boxes.

"Well, One-eyed Bogan was a hard case, Mitchell," I said. "Wasn't he?"

"Yes," said Mitchell, putting down his "long-beer" glass, "he was."

"Rather a bad egg?"

"Yes, a regular bad egg," said Mitchell, decidedly.

"I heard he got caught cheating at cards," I said.

"Did you?" said Mitchell. "Well, I believe he did. Ah, well," he added
reflectively, after another long pull, "One-eyed Bogan won't cheat at
cards any more."

"Why?" I said. "Is he dead then?"

"No," said Mitchell, "he's blind."

"Good God!" I said, "how did that happen?"

"He lost the other eye," said Mitchell, and he took another drink. "Ah,
well, he won't cheat at cards any more--unless there's cards invented
for the blind."

"How did it happen?" I asked.

"Well," said Mitchell, "you see, Harry, it was this way. Bogan went
pretty free in Bourke after the shearing before last, and in the end he
got mixed up in a very ugly-looking business: he was accused of doing
two new-chum jackaroos out of their stuff by some sort of confidence
trick."

"Confidence trick," I said. "I'd never have thought that One-eyed Bogan
had the brains to go in for that sort of thing."

"Well, it seems he had, or else he used somebody else's brains; there's
plenty of broken-down English gentlemen sharpers knocking about out
back, you know, and Bogan might have been taking lessons from one.
I don't know the rights of the case, i