Knowing Grim and how carefully suppressed his enthusiasm usually is, I
couldn't help being fired by all he said on that occasion.

And as for Jeremy, well--it was like meat and drink to him. You meet
men more or less like Jeremy Ross in any of earth's wild places,
although you rarely meet his equal for audacity, irreverence and riotous
good-fellowship. He isn't the only Australian by a long shot who
upholds Australia by fist and boast and astounding gallantry, yet stays
away from home. You couldn't fix Jeremy with concrete; he'd find some
means of bursting any mould.

He had been too long lost in the heart of Arabia for anything except the
thought of Sydney Bluffs and the homesteads that lie beyond to tempt him
for the first few days.

"You fellers come with me," he insisted. "You chuck the Army, Grim, and
I'll show you a country where the cows have to bend their backs to let
the sun go down. Ha-ha! Show you women too--red-lipped girls in
sunbonnets, that'll look good after the splay-footed crows you see out
here. Tell you what: We'll pick up the Orient boat at Port Said--no P.
and O. for me; I'm a passenger aboard ship, not a horrible example!--
and make a wake for the Bull's Kid. Murder! Won't the scoff taste
good!

"We'll hit the Bull's Kid hard for about a week--mix it with the fellers
in from way back--you know--dry-blowers, pearlers, spending it easy--
handing their money to Bessie behind the bar and restless because she
makes it last too long; watch them a while and get in touch with all
that's happening; then flit out of Sydney like bats out of--and hump