Explore "A Sydney-Side Saxon" by Rolf Boldrewood on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
I SAT in a chair in the verandah thinking and thinking about Mr. Leighton. I couldn't get him out of my head. I hoped he would smarten himself up a bit, and then may be Burdock would ask him into the house, on my account, if I told him who he was. Fancy me being able to help a Leighton of King's Leighton, in that way. This was the other end of the world, and wrong side up, when it comes to that and no mistake. Perhaps we might go into partnership after a bit. I'd do the hard delving, and if we prospered, what a chance for him to go home to his people! and what an honour for me to bring it about! He'd soon get some of the tan off his face. Swell clothes do a lot, especially when a man's the real article underneath. I've seen them do a lot when he wasn't--for the matter of that. But his hands! They'd never come right, gloves or no gloves. They'd been knocked out of all shape and comeliness. I was real sorry about them, I can tell you. Just then I heard a heavy step and a loud voice, and in came old Burdock.
'Hulloo! so it's you?' he says, shaking hands as if my wrist was a hide rope that wanted stretching. 'So you've cut Yugildah? How's that; couldn't hit it off with Roper? I expected that--wonder you stood him as long as you did.'