Explore "Six Seamen and a Menagerie" by John Arthur Barry on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
Some of us had been working along the Overland Telegraph Line, others of us prospecting for gold about the Northern Territory. Then the six of us forgathered at old Jack Hanley's boarding-house in Port Adelaide, and talked over what we'd do next. A couple were for going up to try our luck on the Echunga diggings; but that notion was overruled by a majority. Lots of schemes were mooted. At last Tommy Cubitt said, 'Well, boys, what d' ye say to another trip on the briny? We're all sailors; we're all mates; all strapping, able-bodied hearties, and fit for any chance. I've had two years o' damper and mutton, blacks, Barcoo rot, and the rest of the general cussedness of the Australian Bush, and I think three or four months of salt sea-breeze won't harm me, or any of us, for that matter.'
'Second the motion!' said Jimmy Lascelles laconically.