“Two reasons,” Tempest replied. “First, I know that somewhere in the vast Australian bush that nice, colored little snake is still prowling around if he hasn’t had a cold or measles or something that stopped him from prowling evermore; and moreover, he has a few million cousins and sisters and aunts, and I wouldn’t have one of them crawl over me in the moonlight again for all the kangaroo pelts in the country. I fancied I could feel the knots coming on――all the seventeen different kinds――while he was peeking at me through his nasty little eyes. No, siree, I like snakes――to keep away from me. The other reason why I didn’t go back was because my old partner got it into his crazy head to go gold mining, as there was a ‘rush’ in Western Australia just then, and as he’d had some luck at it once he thought he would have another try. I never heard how he came out, though, because when I drew what I had coming I sold my horse and took a trip to Ceylon and back on an Orient boat as a passenger, just to see what it felt like to be really respectable again. Heigh-o, I landed back in this very port with exactly one enormous appetite, two white flannel suits, and three Australian pennies; and I had to take to cleaning trolley cars the same afternoon or sleep on a seat in the park.” “That’s a good idea,” Dave put in. “Couldn’t we do that for the next six weeks?” “What? Sleep in the park?” Tempest said, aghast. “No. Clean trolley cars.” “Not on your life,” replied Tempest, pulling a wry face. “It’s good, honest work, but I’d rather spend the day cleaning out the bilges of ships than cleaning cars. There doesn’t seem to be any romance about those things. Let’s find accommodation for the present, and something will turn up.” They soon found a clean boarding house, not far from the harbor, and most of the next two days was spent in sight-seeing. In the city itself they found more than one opportunity of getting work, but they were not desperately hard up, and Tempest scorned the idea of cleaning out stables, while he positively refused to agree to Dave tackling the job of elevator boy in a hotel. “How do you think you’ll learn sailoring by shooting up and down an elevator shaft all day?” he asked. “No, my son. Our business is the sea. From now on we’ll haunt the docks till our chance comes. I would rather be tarring the sides of a coal hulk than cleaning out stables.” Work that would meet their requirements, however, was not easy to get. Tempest, rather than go on loafing, started as a “lumper,” as the men are called who load and unload ships. The vessel was laden with heavy planks of wood, each of which had to be carried off on the shoulder and deposited on a cart. The work was too hard for Dave to tackle. Tempest was in perfect physical trim, but only an experienced “lumper” can stand heavy beams of timber on his shoulder from morning till night. The pad he wore soon cut through into the flesh, and by noon he had to throw up the job.