Explore "Battered Bob" by Edward Dyson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
He was working on a station in the Western when I / knew him, / And he came from Conongamo, up the old sur- / veyors' track, / And the fellows all admitted that no man in Vic. / could 'do him,' / Since he'd smothered Stonewall Menzie, also Ander- / son, the black. / Bob was modelled for a fighter, but he'd run to / beef a trifle; / For his science every rouseabout was satisfied to / vouch, / And Red Fogarty advised us he delivered like a rifle, / And his stopping-well, beside him Harry Sallars / -- was a slouch.
Not a man of us had met him till he settled on / the station- / This was early in the Sixties, what we call the / good old days- / And it's cheerfully admitted Robert owed his / reputation / To a crippled jaw, a broken nose, and eyes that / looked both ways. / We were certain on the face of it our guess was not / an error, / Every feature of his phiz was marked, his chin was / pulled askew, / And The Critic passed the office: 'Bet your buttons / he's a terror! / That's the man who hammered Kelly on The Creek / in Fifty-two!'