of damp seaweed, and an apologetic cringe-and-look-up-at-you manner.
He professed to have forgotten who he was and all about himself.

The Oracle was deeply interested in this case, as indeed he was in
anything else that "looked curious." He was a big, simple-minded
shearer, with more heart than brains, more experience than sense, and
more curiosity than either. It was a wonder that he had not profited,
even indirectly, by the last characteristic. His heart was filled
with a kind of reverential pity for anyone who was fortunate or
unfortunate enough to possess an "affliction;" and amongst his mates
had been counted a deaf man, a blind man, a poet, and a man who "had
rats." Tom had dropped across them individually, when they were down
in the world, and had befriended them, and studied them with great
interest--especially the poet; and they thought kindly of him, and
were grateful--except the individual with the rats, who reckoned Tom
had an axe to grind--that he, in fact, wanted to cut his (Rat's) liver
out as a bait for Darling cod--and so renounced the mateship.

It was natural, then, for The Oracle to take the present case under
his wing. He used his influence with the boss to get the Mystery on
"picking up," and studied him in spare time, and did his best to
assist the poor hushed memory, which nothing the men could say or do
seemed able to push further back than the day on which the stranger
"kind o' woke up" on the plain, and found a swag beside him. The
swag had been prospected and fossicked for a clue, but yielded none.
The chaps were sceptical at first, and inclined to make fun of the
Mystery; but Tom interfered, and intimated that if they were skunks
enough to chyack or try on any of their "funny business" with a
"pore afflicted chap," he (Tom) would be obliged to "perform."
Most of the men there had witnessed Tom's performance, and no one