Australia or elsewhere in which a servant is spoken of as possessed of even common sense. Of course, the better class of girls will revolt at contemptuous treatment, and they are, therefore, scarce in Brisbane, and have always been. In the bush of course it is different: there the servant is not spoken of as the "slavey" and thought of as a fool, and as a consequence they are neither the one nor the other. But a tradesman in Brisbane has no opportunity whatever of meeting any young woman outside these circles, because the greatest possible social distinction exists between such people as, say a bank clerk, or even a grocer's clerk, and a tradesman or a labourer; so is it between a music-teacher, shop-girl, dressmaker, or a servant. I found it so, and that had a great deal to do with my dislike to Brisbane; but, apart from that, I had been so used to the free life of the bush, and more lately then to the changing scenes among the South Sea Islands, that I could not endure for long the everyday life of the shop and the boarding-house, and the boarding-house and the shop. I therefore engaged myself as carpenter to a squatter who had a large station on the Darling Downs, and right glad was I when I shook the dust of Brisbane off my feet again. But before leaving this city I should like to speak about the last piece of work I did there, because it is in such striking contrast to the state of the carpenter's trade at the present time. One Saturday morning when I came to work, my employer asked me to put a few tools in my basket and go out to his private house to perform certain work there. As I crossed Queen Street a man came running after me and asked me if I wanted a job of carpenter's work. I said "No." When I came a little further up, along George Street, a publican came running out of his door, smiling all over his face, saying I was the very man he wanted, as he could see by the basket I carried that I was a carpenter. I told him I was not open to engagement; but he would not take "no" for an answer. After a long conversation in the street, in which he implored me to do just this little job for him that he wanted, while I explained that I was on my road to work for which I already was engaged. I was on the point of cutting it short by going away, when he asked me in any case to come into his hotel and have a glass of beer. When I came in he renewed the attack in this way--he asked me just to oblige him by looking at the work and telling him what it was worth. He then showed me a large shutter which stood under a rough window opening in the yard, and told me that all he wanted was for a man to fit this shutter to the opening and put hinges on it; he had the hinges. Now, what was it worth? I saw that he intended me to do it if he could get me, but I by no means wanted to. I said it was worth thirty shillings at the least: "All right," cried he, "do it, and I will give you thirty shillings."