Explore "A Case for the Oracle" by Henry Lawson on Textopian. Read with annotations and highlights.
The Oracle and I were camped together. The Oracle was a bricklayer by trade, and had two or three small contracts on hand. I was "doing a bit of house-painting". There were a plasterer, a carpenter, and a plumber -- we were all T'othersiders, and old mates, and we worked things together. It was in Westralia -- the Land of T'othersiders -- and, therefore, we were not surprised when Mitchell turned up early one morning, with his swag and an atmosphere of salt water about him.
He'd had a rough trip, he said, and would take a spell that day and take the lay of the land and have something cooked for us by the time we came home; and go to graft himself next morning. And next morning he went to work, "labouring" for the Oracle.