and to think!--Git out of me door!" and she caught up the billy of
coffee. "Git outside me door, or I'll let ye have it in ye'r ugly
face, ye low woolscourer--an' it's nearly bilin'."

Old Jack stumbled dazedly out, and blind instinct got him on to the
coach as the safest place. Harry Chatswood had stood with his long,
gaunt figure hung by an elbow to the high mantelshelf, all the time,
taking alternate gulps from his pint of coffee and puffs from his
pipe, and very calmly and restfully regarding the scene.

"An' now," she said, "if the _gentleman's_ done, I'd thank him
to pay--it's eighteenpence--an' git his overcoat on. I've had enough
dirty insults this night to last me a lifetime. To think of it--the
blaggard!" she said to the table, "an' me a woman alone in a place
like this on a night like this!"

The traveller calmly put down a two-shilling piece, as if the whole
affair was the most ordinary thing in the world (for he was used to
many bush things) and comfortably got into his overcoat.

"Well, Mrs Mae, I never thought Old Jack was mad before," said Harry
Chatswood. "And I hinted to him," he added in a whisper.
"Anyway" (out loudly), "you'll lend me a light, Mrs Mac, to have a
look at that there swingle-bar of mine?"

"With pleasure, Harry," she said, "for you're a white man, anyway.
I'll bring ye a light. An' all the lights in heaven if I could,
an'--an' in the other place if they'd help ye."

When he'd looked to the swingle-bar, and had mounted to his place and