He also told me how he, Joe, had tied a mounted trooper to a verandah post
and thrashed him with pine saplings until the timber gave out
and he was tired. I questioned Jimmie, but the incidents seemed
to have escaped the old king's memory.

Joe could build bigger woodheaps with less wood than any
black or white tramp or loafer round there. He was a born architect.
He took a world of pains with his wood-heaps -- he built them hollow,
in the shape of a break-wind, with the convex side towards the house
for the benefit of his employers. Joe was easy-going; he had inherited
a love of peace and quietness from his father. Uncle generally came home
after dark, and Joe would have little fires lit at safe distances
all round the house, in order to convey an impression that the burning off
was proceeding satisfactorily.

When the warm weather came, Joe and I got into trouble with an old hag
for bathing in a waterhole in the creek in front of her shanty,
and she impounded portions of our wardrobe. We shouldn't have lost much
if she had taken it all; but our sense of injury was deep,
especially as she used very bad grammar towards us.

Joe addressed her from the safe side of the water. He said, "Look here!
Old leather-face, sugar-eye, plar-bag marmy, I call it you."

"Plar-bag marmy" meant "Mother Flour-bag", and ration sugar
was decidedly muddy in appearance.

She came round the waterhole with a clothes prop, and made good time, too;
but we got across and away with our clothes.