Explore "Kanga Creek: An Australian Idyll" by Havelock Ellis on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
'ANTI-HUMBUG' Williams ran out from his school-house door as he saw his young acquaintance alight from Quick's spring-cart.
-"You're a brick!" he exclaimed, emphatically slapping the youth's shoulders, "a regular brick! The inspector told me they ought never to have sent you to such an hole, and I may tell you now that Chapman has been expecting you to throw it up ever since you went out. Well," he went on as he drew his guest into the parlor, chasing out a few of his children in order to gain space and silence, "and so you're going to leave us for good, and be off to the old country again; I dare say you're right. Australia is pretty much played out. Things are not what they were when I came out. There'll be a bust-up some day, mark my words. Droughts and theology, deserts and dry bones, that will undo the place. What would old Buckle have said? Curious action of the climate, eh? But we brought the virus with us from the old land. Coelum non animum."