I obtained work at one of the plantations for three pounds sterling per week. For this money I was expected only to work eight hours a day and five hours on Saturdays, that being the ordinary tradesman's hours of work all over Australia. But as my employer was busy and I was tired of remaining poor longer than I could help, I obtained leave to work two hours overtime every day, for which I was paid at the rate of eighteenpence an hour. When I arrived in Mackay I had gone into a Chinaman's boarding-house, as being the most suitable place for my means and condition, but although a similar place had suited me well enough in the gold-diggings, the class of men who stayed here and the accommodation I received did not now suit me at all. I seemed to shrink into myself and gradually got into a morbid and unhealthy state of mind. I was as good, at least I thought myself as good, as most of the clerks or well-dressed young fellows I saw knocking about the town, doing very little work; but that they were of a different opinion was evident from the scathing contempt one or two of them managed once or twice to put into their manner towards me the first week I was in town when I by accident had addressed them. Do clothes make the man? thought I; was it necessary for me to conform to their habits, and to imitate them, to secure respect or even civility? I would not do it. What would be gained? All was vanity. Another little incident which had not been without its influence upon me, I mention to show that such unconsidered trifles make the sum total of ordinary life, was this: the day I arrived in town, but when I was yet about half a mile from it, I had met four young ladies, who I suppose were out for a walk. They were evidently dressed in their best clothes and looked both nice and pretty, and as youth always recognizes a sort of relation in youth--or, if you prefer it, young men always take an interest in young women, and _vice versâ_--I was looking closely at them and they at me as we neared each other on the road. They took no trouble in concealing their verdict of me. I will not say they were so ill-bred as to make grimaces at me, but they might just as soon have gathered their skirts about them and held their noses. I saw that they considered me an undesirable party. I was just then in rather high spirits, which could not be damped all in a moment, so as I met and passed them I took my stick up and held it in military fashion close to my shoulder as I marched by. I could hear them giggling behind me, but I did not look round, and lovelorn as I was--because you must remember my adventure of the day before--it had a depressing effect upon me, which grew as time went. So, after staying for a week in the Chinaman's boarding-house, with the first money I got I bought a tent and pitched it right away in a lonely spot, and there I lived by myself, like a regular hermit. I thought of Thorkill who was