Well, it's done now, and there's no get away. I may as well make
the best of it. A sergeant of police was shot in our last scrimmage,
and they must fit some one over that. It's only natural.
He was rash, or Starlight would never have dropped him that day.
Not if he'd been sober either. We'd been drinking all night
at that Willow Tree shanty. Bad grog, too! When a man's half drunk
he's fit for any devilment that comes before him. Drink! How do you think
a chap that's taken to the bush -- regularly turned out, I mean,
with a price on his head, and a fire burning in his heart night and day --
can stand his life if he don't drink? When he thinks of what
he might have been, and what he is! Why, nearly every man he meets
is paid to run him down, or trap him some way like a stray dog
that's taken to sheep-killin'. He knows a score of men, and women too,
that are only looking out for a chance to sell his blood on the quiet
and pouch the money. Do you think that makes a chap mad and miserable,
and tired of his life, or not? And if a drop of grog will take him
right out of his wretched self for a bit why shouldn't he drink?
People don't know what they are talking about. Why, he is that miserable
that he wonders why he don't hang himself, and save the Government
all the trouble; and if a few nobblers make him feel as if he might have
some good chances yet, and that it doesn't so much matter after all,
why shouldn't he drink?

He does drink, of course; every miserable man, and a good many women
as have something to fear or repent of, drink. The worst of it is
that too much of it brings on the `horrors', and then the devil,
instead of giving you a jog now and then, sends one of his imps
to grin in your face and pull your heartstrings all day and all night long.
By George, I'm getting clever -- too clever, altogether, I think.