"How the --- do you know?"

"Why, one of 'em come to me an' told me all about it."

There was an involuntary guffaw.

"Look here, Bob," said Billy Woods, the rouseabouts' secretary,
kindly. "Don't you make a fool of yourself. You'll have all the
chaps laughing at you. Those girls are only working you for all
you're worth. I suppose one of 'em came crying and whining to you.
Don't you bother about 'em. _You_ don't know 'em; they can pump
water at a moment's notice. You haven't had any experience with women
yet, Bob."

"She didn't come whinin' and cryin' to me," said the Giraffe, dropping
his twanging drawl a little. "She looked me straight in the face an'
told me all about it."

"I say, Giraffe," said Box-o'-Tricks, "what have you been doin'?
You've bin down there on the nod. I'm surprised at yer, Giraffe."

"An' he pretends to be so gory soft an' innocent, too," growled the
Bogan. "We know all about you, Giraffe."

"Look here, Giraffe," said Mitchell the shearer. "I'd never have
thought it of you. We all thought you were the only virgin youth west
the river; I always thought you were a moral young man. You mustn't
think that because your conscience is pricking you everyone else's
is."