The four little Australians grew dirtier and more shy and savage,
and ate underdone kangaroo and 'possum and native bear,
with an occasional treat of oak grubs and goanna by preference --
and died out, one by one, as blacks do when brought within
the ever widening circle of civilisation. Jimmie moved promptly
after each death, and left the evil one in possession,
and built another mia-mia -- each one being less pretentious than the last.
Finally he was left, the last of his tribe, to mourn his lot in solitude.

But the devil-devil came and sat down by King Jimmie's side one night,
so he, too, moved out across the Old Man border, and the mia-mia
rotted into the ground and the grass grew there.

. . . . .

I admired Joe; I thought him wiser and cleverer than any white boy
in the world. He could smell out 'possums unerringly,
and I firmly believed he could see yards through the muddiest of dam water;
for once, when I dropped my boat in, and was not sure of the spot,
he fished it out first try. With cotton reels and bits of stick and bark
he would make the model of a station homestead, slaughter-yards,
sheep-yards, and all complete, working in ideas and improvements of his own
which might have been put into practice with advantage.
He was a most original and interesting liar upon all subjects
upon which he was ignorant and which came up incidentally.
He gave me a very interesting account of an interview
between his father and Queen Victoria, and mentioned casually
that his father had walked across the Thames without getting wet.