d innocent and honest
as any other man, but no more. But if a poor devil came along in the
horrors, with every inch of him jumping, and snakes, and green-eyed
yahoos, and flaming-nosed bunyips chasing him, we'd take him in and give
him soothing draughts, and nurse him, and watch him, and clear him out
with purgatives, and keep giving him nips of good whisky, and, above
all, we'd sympathize with him, and tell him that we were worse than he
was many a time. We wouldn't tell him what a weak, selfish man he was,
or harp on his ruined life. We'd try to make him out a good deal better
morally than he really was. It's remorse that hurries most men to
hell--especially in the Bush. When a man firmly believes he is a
hopeless case, then there's no hope for him: but let him have doubts and
there's a chance. Make him believe that there are far worse cases than
his. We wouldn't preach the sin of dissipation to him, no--but we'd try
to show him the _folly_ of a wasted life. I ought to be able to preach
that, God knows.

"And, above all, we'd try to drive out of his head the cursed old
popular idea that it's hard to reform--that a man's got to fight a hard
battle with himself to get away from drink--pity drunkards can't believe
how easy it is. And we'd put it to him straight whether his few hours'
enjoyment were worth the days he had to suffer hell for it."

"And, likely as not," I said, "when you'd put him on his feet he'd take
the nearest track to the next shanty, and go on a howling spree, and
come back to Lost Souls' in a week, raving aid worse than ever. What
would you do then?"

"We'd take him in again, and build him up some more; and a third or
fourth time if necessary. I believe in going right on with a thing once
I take it in hand. And if he didn't turn up after the last spree we'd
look for him up the scrub and bring him in and let him die on a bed, and
make his death as comfortable as possible. I've seen one man die on the
ground, and found one dead in the bush. We'd bury him under a gum and
put `Sacred to the Memory of a Man who Died. (Let him R.I.P.)' over him.
I'd have a nice little graveyard, with gums for tombstones--and I'd have
some original epitaphs--I promise you."

"And how much gratitude would you expect to get out of the Lost Souls'
Hotel?" I asked.

"None," said Mitchell, promptly. "It wouldn't be a Gratitude Discovery
Syndicate. People might say that the Lost Souls' Hotel was a den for
kidnapping women an