"Grass up over yer boots, an' the carrion goin' into it lemons," he remarked.
"I do like to give this Runnymede the benefit o' the act.
'On't ole Martin be ropeable when he sees that fence! Magomery's as hard
as nails, his own self; but he ain't the class o' feller that watches
from behine a tree--keeps curs like Martin to do his dirty work.
But he'd like to nip every divil of us if he got half a slant. I notice,
the more swellisher a man is, the more miserabler he is about a bite o' grass
for a team, or a feed for a traveller. Magomery's got an edge on you,
Thompson--you an' Cunningham--for workin' on Nosey Alf's horse-paddick,
an' for leavin' some gates open. Moriarty, the storekeeper,
he told me about it."

"Well, we did n't work on Alf's horse-paddock, and we did n't leave
any gates open," replied Thompson. "We lost the steers from the ram-paddock,
here, and we found them away in the Sedan paddock. Certainly, we camped them
all night in the Connelly paddock, but we never touched Alf's grass,
and we left no gates open."

"Chorus, boys!" said Mosey flippantly.

"O, what a (adj.) lie!" echoed Dixon, Bum, and the precentor himself.
Thompson sighed; Cooper growled; and Willoughby coughed deprecatingly.

"I don't blame ole Martin to have a bit of a nose on me," continued Mosey
laughingly. "Lord! didn't I git the loan of him cheap las' summer!
Me an' the ole man was comin' down from Karowra with the last o' the clip;
an' these paddicks was as bare as the palm o' your hand; so we goes on
past here, an' camps half-ways between the fur corner o' the ram-paddick
an' the station gate; an' looses out about an hour after sundown.