language), and "chucked" them into the hat.

And Barcoo-Rot is probably unconscious to this day that he was ever
connected with an act of charity. The Giraffe struck the deaf
jackaroo in the neat room. I heard the chaps cursing "Long-'un" for
waking them, and "Deaf-'un" for being, as they thought at first, the
indirect cause of the disturbance. I heard the Giraffe and his hat
being condemned in other rooms and cursed along the veranda where more
shearers were sleeping; and after a while I turned out.

The Giraffe was carefully fixing a mattress and pillows on the floor
of a wagonette, and presently a man, who looked like a corpse, was
carried out and lifted into the trap.

As the wagonette started, the shanty-keeper--a fat, soulless-looking
man--put his hand in his pocket and dropped a quid into the hat which
was still going round, in the hands of the Giraffe's mate, little
Teddy Thompson, who was as far below medium height as the Giraffe was
above it.

The Giraffe took the horse's head and led him along on the most level
parts of the road towards the railway station, and two or three chaps
went along to help get the sick man into the train.

The shearing-season was over in that district, but I got a job of
house-painting, which was my trade, at the Great Western Hotel (a
two-story brick place), and I stayed in Bourke for a couple of months.


The Giraffe was a Victorian native from Bendigo. He was well known in