CHAPTER 1
The Sex Problem Again
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It was Mitchell's habit to take an evening off now and then from yarning or reflecting, and proceed, in a most methodical manner, to wash his spare shirts and patch his pants. I was in the habit of contributing to some Sydney papers, and every man is an editor at heart, so, at other times, Mitchell would take another evening off, and root out my swag, and go through my papers in the same methodical manner, and make alterations and additions without comment or reference to me; and sometimes he'd read a little thing of my own which didn't meet his views, and accidentally drop it into the fire; and at other times he'd get hold of some rhyme or sketch that was troubling me, and wrap it up and give it to a passing mailman unbeknown to me. The unexpected appearance of such articles in the paper, as well as the effects of the involuntary collaboration in other pieces, gave me several big surprises.
It was in camp on a fencing contract west of Bourke. We had a book which we'd borrowed from a library at Bourke for a year or two-never mind the name of it-it was in ninety-one or ninety-two, and the sex problem was booming then. I had been surreptitiously tearing some carefully-written slips of manuscript-leaves taken from an old pocket-book-into small pieces; I dropped them, with apparent carelessness, into the fire and stood with my back to it.