ild a Swagman's
Rest and call it the Lost Souls' Hotel, or the Sundowners' Arms, or the
Half-way House to ----, or some such name that would take the bushmen's
fancy. I'd have it built on the best plans for coolness in a hot
country; bricks, and plenty of wide verandas with brick floors, and
balconies, and shingles, in the old Australian style. I wouldn't have
a sheet of corrugated iron about the place. And I'd have old-fashioned
hinged sashes with small panes and vines round 'em; they look cooler and
more homely and romantic than the glaring sort that shove up.

"And I'd dig a tank or reservoir for surface water as big as a lake, and
bore for artesian water--and get it, too, if I had to bore right through
to England; and I'd irrigate the ground and make it grow horse-feed
and fruit, and vegetables too, if I had to cart manure from Bourke. And
every teamster's bullock or horse, and every shearer's hack, could burst
itself free, but I'd make travelling stock pay--for it belongs to the
squatters and capitalists. All carriers could camp for one night
only. And I'd--no, I wouldn't have any flowers; they might remind some
heart-broken, new-chum black sheep of the house where he was born, and
the mother whose heart he broke--and the father whose grey hairs he
brought down in sorrow to the grave--and break him up altogether."

"But what about the old-fashioned windows and the vines?" I asked.

"Oh!" said Mitchell, "I forgot them. On second thought, I think I would
have some flowers; and maybe a bit of ivy-green. The new chum might be
trying to work out his own salvation, and the sight of the roses and ivy
would show him that he hadn't struck such a God-forgotten country after
all, and help strengthen the hope for something better that's in the
heart of every vagabond till he dies."

Puff, puff, puff, slowly and reflectively.

"Until he dies," repeated Mitchell. "And, maybe," he said, rousing
himself, "I'd have a little room fixed up like a corner of a swell
restaurant, with silver and napkins on the table, and I'd fix up a
waiter, so that when a broken-down University wreck came along he might
feel, for an hour or so, something like the man he used to be. But I
suppose," Mitchell reflected, "he wouldn't feel completely his old self
without a lady friend sitting opposite to him. I might fix up a black
gin for him, but I suppose he'd draw the colour line. But that's
nonsense.

"All teamsters and travellers could camp there