“The Outback can still breed some true mates. One of them was heard of at Parkes (N.S.W.) the other day. With another man—a good deal older than himself—he had tramped into Forbes looking for work. On the way the older man’s boots gave out, so the mate bought him a pair, and then had only a few shillings left. They didn’t get the work they were after, so they decided to give their feet a rest and take the rail to Parkes. The older man’s fare was fixed up all right, but the young one quietly took a ticket as far as his money would stretch, and then, with a breezy: ‘So long!’ he got out and walked. The older man rode on; but bad luck had got him down, and when his mate turned up at Parkes he was a corpse. The coroner’s court said it was suicide on the part of one, and mighty fine and generous behaviour on the part of the other; and witnesses and others insisted on dropping their fees and some odd coins into the white man’s empty hat.” CHAPTER V THE WORKING-WOMEN OF MELBOURNE, AND IN PARTICULAR THE CHAR-LADY VERY few people of any social standing beyond a few college professors and doctors actually live in Melbourne. But, still, it is thickly inhabited, and has a curious sublife of its own, quite distinct from that of the people who flock to it during business hours; returning again to their suburbs between five and six, only to reappear later, like flashing meteors, on their way to the theatre and supper at The Vienna or Paris Café. The professors congregate for the most part round the University, and the doctors up at the east end of Collins Street, where one would imagine there must be at least one doctor to every five people in the town. But beyond these there are the upper parts of shops, where the tradesmen who cannot yet afford a villa in suburbia live; and dingy, narrow streets, with little huddled homes where the workpeople dwell, and out of which issue on Sundays and high days the most resplendently attired young women that you could possibly imagine; while, besides these, there are huge blocks of buildings known as “Chambers,” the inhabitants of which are less easy to place—and what a hotch-potch they do present in all faith, kept ever a-simmer by a flame of gossip.