spec quotes

I had written him a letter which I had, for want of better Knowledge, sent to where I met him, down the Lachlan, years ago. He was shearing when I knew him, so I sent the letter to him, Just 'on spec', addressed as follows: 'Clancy, of the Overflow'. And an answer came directed in a writing unexpected, (And I think the same was written with a thumbnail dipped in tar) 'Twas his shearing mate who wrote it, and verbatim I will quote it: 'Clancy's gone to Queensland droving, and we don't know where he are.'

- Banjo (Andrew Barton) Paterson
  'Clancy of the Overflow', first published in the Bulletin, collected in The Man from Snowy River and OtherVerses (1895).