ere working, and died a few minutes after
the rescue. [*] But that's another yarn. Jack Drew had a bad spree after
that; then he went to Sydney again, got on his old paper, went to the
dogs, and a Parliamentary push that owned some city fly-blisters and
country papers sent him up to edit the 'Advertiser' at two quid a
week. He drank again, and no wonder--you don't know what it is to run a
'Geebung Advocate' or 'Mudgee Budgee Chronicle', and live there. He was
about the same build as the Lachlan, but stouter, and had something the
same kind of eyes; but he was ordinarily as careless and devil-may-care
as the Lachlan is grumpy and quiet.

* See "When the Sun Went Down", in "While the
Billy Boils".--

"There was a doctor there, called Dr. Lebinski. They said he was a
Polish exile. He was fifty or sixty, a tall man, with the set of an
old soldier when he stood straight; but he mostly walked with his hands
behind him, studying the ground. Jack Drew caught that trick off
him towards the end. They were chums in a gloomy way, and kept to
themselves--they were the only two men with brains in that town. They
drank and fought the drink together. The Doctor was too gloomy and
impatient over little things to be popular. Jack Drew talked too
straight in the paper, and in spite of his proprietors--about pub
spieling and such things--and was too sarcastic in his progress
committee, town council, and toady reception reports. The Doctor had a
hawk's nose, pointed grizzled beard and moustache, and steely-grey eyes
with a haunted look in them sometimes (especially when he glanced at you
sideways), as if he loathed his fellow men, and couldn't always hide it;
or as if you were the spirit of morphia or opium, or a dead girl he'd
wronged in his youth--or whatever his devil was, beside drink. He was
clever, and drink had brought him down to Redclay.

"The bank manager was a heavy snob named Browne. He complained of being
a bit dull of hearing in one ear--after you'd yelled at him three or
four times; sometimes I've thought he was as deaf as a book-keeper in
both. He had a wife and youngsters, but they were away on a visit while
I was working in Redclay. His niece--or, rather, his wife's niece--a
girl named Ruth Wilson, did the housekeeping. She was an orphan,
adopted by her aunt, and was general slavey and scape-goat to the
family--especially to the brats, as is often the case. She was rather
pretty, and lady-like, and kept to h