Page:The romance of Runnibede (IA romanceofrunnibe00rudd).pdf/104

I put in, feeling that she was unacquainted with the efficiency of Tom, for in the eyes of us boys he was a prototype. We looked up to Tom. Though he might not have had any delicate breeding, there was a lot of gentility about him—at least we thought so. And how the Governor looked at me and smiled. But mother regarded me almost with pity.

"Tom knows music," I went on rapturously. "You haven’t heard him playing his concertina, have you, mother?" (A chuckle came from the regions of the Governor's stomach.) "Gee! I wish I could play it like him!"

In truth, my youthful notion was that Tom was wasting his time stock-riding on a cattle station, and should be making a fortune playing the concertina to the multitudes. No finer or more praiseworthy profession could exist, I thought, than that of a concertina player.

"I'm glad you can't play one, Jim," the Governor chuckled.

"And you should hear Tom telling the other men down in the hut a lot of things they don’t know, mother," I went ahead. "My word, he told them one day a lot they didn’t know about young kangaroos being born—and about the blacks—he can talk all their language now. You ask young Ted, if you don’t believe me, mother—ask him-

"Oh, will you be quiet," she suddenly snapped, and the Governor, I fancy, feeling glad I had come into the discussion, echoed: "The black’s language? I don’t think so, Jim."

"Yes, he can," I maintained. "I heard him talk-