"Well, then," said my mate, "I am glad for your sake; but as that is the case I will tell you what I otherwise would have said nothing about. The 'boss' was to-day passing one or two jokes about your being so anxious to make your fortune quickly when you left here last, and as we have scarcely a stroke to do, I would not, if I were you, give him the satisfaction to begin work again, because I am sure he thinks you are very hard up." "Does he?" cried I. "Well, he makes a mistake, and so do you. Perhaps you think because I haven't a paper collar on that I am ready to beg?" "Oh, no, no!" cried he; "I only meant, in a friendly way, to offer you what you perhaps needed, so do not get angry where no offence is meant." "Oh, I was not angry," said I; "but I certainly would not work for Mr. ---- again, as he thought I could not do without him. Had I not for a fact passed Townsville, where wages were higher and work more plentiful, to come here? And now he thought he was the only man in Queensland where I could earn my living! But I would show Mr. ---- different. I would go to Port Mackay, where there was plenty of work and no family arrangement about it. That was what I would do." After some more conversation of the same sort, I went out in the street for a walk, and to get an opportunity of thinking quietly over my now desperate circumstances. With the exception of the clothes I wore upon me, "All my fortune was a shirt That was ragged and full of dirt." I walked about the streets for some time, trying to make a song in honour of the occasion, which was to begin with the above words, and set it to music, and as I succeeded better than I thought I correspondingly got into high spirits, and took it all as an immense joke. There seemed to me only one way out of the difficulty. I could walk to Port Mackay, which is another and larger town, more prosperous than Port Denison. It lies on the coast also, and the distance by road between the two places is one hundred and thirty miles. The road, however, is very little frequented, as what little communication there is is all by water. There were, however, half a dozen stations on the road, and I made no doubt I should be right somehow. The blacks in that district had, indeed, a bad name for spearing cattle and being very wild and ferocious; but of that I took no heed. The most important thing just then was for me to get away from my countryman's house without exciting in him any suspicions about the state of my exchequer. I felt some strokes of conscience certainly over thus repaying his kindness with such insincerity, but I could at least truthfully say that I had not meant it, and that circumstances over which I had no control, &c. So the next morning I put on a reserved, dignified air, and after breakfast told my host that I intended to shift my quarters. They both kindly protested, until I had to say that I had business somewhere in the bush, and would come back to