“He never strikes—that ain’t his game;
    No matter what the others try
He goes on shearing just the same.
I never rightly knew his name—
    We always call him ‘Gundagai’!”

Our flashest shearer then had gone
    To train a racehorse for a race,
And while his sporting fit was on
He couldn’t be relied upon,
    So ‘Gundagai’ shore in his place.

Alas for man’s veracity!
    For reputations false and true!
This ‘Gundagai’ turned out to be,
For strife and all-round villainy,
    The very worst I ever knew!

He started racing Jack Devine,
    And grumbled when I made him stop.
The pace he showed was extra fine,
But all those pure-bred ewes of mine
    Were bleeding like a butcher’s shop.

He cursed the sheep, he cursed the shed,
    From roof to rafter, floor to shelf;
As for my mongrel ewes, he said,
I ought to get a razor blade
    And shave the blooming things myself.

On Sundays he controlled a “school”,
    And played “two-up” the livelong day;
And many a young confiding fool
He shore of his financial wool;
    And when he lost he would not pay.

He organised a shearers’ race,
    And “touched” me to provide the prize.
His packhorse showed surprising pace
And won hands down—he was The Ace,
    A well-known racehorse in disguise.

Next day the bruiser of the shed
    Displayed an opal-tinted eye,
With large contusions on his head.
He smiled a sickly smile, and said
    He’d “had a cut at Gundagai!”

But just as we were getting full
    Of ‘Gundagai’ and all his ways,
A telegram for “Henry Bull”
Arrived. Said he, “That’s me—all wool!
    Let’s see what this here message says.”

He opened it, his face grew white,
    He dropped the shears and turned away.
It ran, “Your wife took bad last night;
Come home at once—no time to write,
    We fear she may not last the day.”

He got his cheque—I didn’t care
    To dock him for my mangled ewes;
His store account—we ‘called it square’.
Poor wretch! he had enough to bear,
    Confronted by such dreadful news.

The shearers raised a little purse
    To help a mate, as shearers will,
“To pay the doctor and the nurse,
And if there should be something worse —
    To pay the undertaker’s bill.”

They wrung his hand in sympathy,
    He rode away without a word,
His head hung down in misery.
A wandering hawker passing by
    Was told of what had just occurred.

“Well! that’s a curious thing,” he said,
    “I’ve known that feller all his life—
He’s had the loan of this here shed!
I know his wife ain’t nearly dead,
    Because he hasn’t got a wife!”