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Updated: May 14, 2025
This flustered her slightly, and when Mrs Green arrived, complaining of rheumatic twinges in her leg, she decided to try Pinkey's sympathetic manner. "Ah, if anybody knows what rheumatism is, I do," she cried.
"Wouldn't that be some rank! Even if we 'rim a tire' we got to swing off this track, for there's a culvert somewheres along here and " "Pink!" Pinkey had no time to look, but he knew what the sharp exclamation meant. "Pull my gun out lay it on the seat I can stop 'em if I must." Pinkey's face was white under its sunburn and his jaw was set. "How far we got?"
Lil had acted like a fool, and Mrs Partridge, with her insatiable greed for gossip, had gathered hints and rumours from the four corners of Sydney, and Lil had bolted rather than argue it out with her father. That and the death of Pinkey's mother had soured his temper, and his wits, never very powerful, had grown childish under the blow.
The cares of the shop had told on Pinkey's looks, for the last two years spent with Chook's mother had been like a long honeymoon, and Pinkey had led the life of a lady, with nothing to do but scrub and wash and help Chook's mother keep her house like a new pin. So she had grown plump and pert like a well-fed sparrow, but the care and worry of the new shop had sharpened the angles of her body.
Chook looked idly at the stars, remote and lofty, strewn like sand across the sky, and wondered at one that gleamed and glowed as he watched. A song of the music-hall about eyes and stars came into his head. He looked steadily into Pinkey's eyes, darkened by the broad brim of her hat, and could see no resemblance, for he was no poet.
Stinky, with a haphazard blow, had given Chook the dreaded knock-out, a jolt beside the chin that, in the expressive phrase, "sent him to sleep". But now the police came up, glad of this chance to show their authority and order the people about. The crowd melted. Chook's mates had pulled him into a sitting position, when, to Pinkey's delight, he opened his eyes and spat out a mouthful of blood.
He was glad when Pinkey's heavy breathing ceased in the cell adjoining and he began to grumble. "Looks like a town the size of Prouty would have a decent jail in it," he said, crossly. "They go and throw every Tom, Dick, and Harry in this here cell, and some buckaroo has half tore up the mattress." "You can't have your private cell, you know," Wallie suggested.
"Nuthin'," said Chook, seizing the leg of a table; "but wait till I put the nosebag on the moke." "Whose cart is it?" inquired Pinkey. "Jack Ryan's," answered Chook; "'e's bin shickered since last We'n'sday, an' I'm takin' it round fer 'is missis an' the kids." Mrs Partridge received Chook very graciously when she learned that he was a friend of Pinkey's and had offered to help in passing.
Resentment and disgust were in Pinkey's voice. "I'd steal washings off of clothes lines first." He added: "I don't like them jokes." "I didn't know you were touchy, Pink." "Everybody's touchy," Pinkey replied, sagely, "if you hit 'em on the right spot. But, do you know, this dude ranch sticks in my mind, and I can't git it out." "We might as well let it drop.
I was just tryin' on Elizabeth's new 'at, to see if it suited me." As she spoke, she tore out the hatpins with feverish dexterity, and thrust the hat into Pinkey's astonished hand. "Take it, yer little fool," she whispered, savagely. Her face looked suddenly old and withered under the scanty grey hair.
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