'I don't think I'd like begging for meals, Ted,' I said musingly. And in a moment I was wishing with all my heart I could withdraw the words. It seemed that, for the first time in all our acquaintance, I had hurt and offended this simple, good-hearted fellow. 'Beggin', is it?' he cried, very visibly ruffled. 'I'd be sorry to ask ye to, for it's what I've never done in me life, an' never would. Would ye call a man a beggar for takin' a ration or a bitter 'baccy from a station store? Why, doesn't every traveller do the same? An', for that matter, can't a man always put in a day's work, gettin' firewood or what not, if he's a mind to? Ye needn't fear Ted Reilly'll ever come to beggin'!' In my eager anxiety to placate my only friend I almost accepted his offer. But not quite. Some little inherited difference held me back, perhaps. I wonder! At all events, the thing was dropped between us for the time; and, before he left, Ted promised he would tackle a bit of work a Myall Creek farmer had offered him--to clear a bush paddock of burrajong fern, which had poisoned some cattle. Thus, he would be able to come and see me again on the following Sunday. On that we parted; and, before I was half way through my milking, fear and regret oppressed me as with a physical nausea; fear that I might have lost my only friend, regret that I had not accepted his offer, and so won to freedom and the big world outside St. Peter's. The night that followed was one of the most unhappy spent by me at St. Peter's. My prudence appeared to me the merest poltroonery, my remark about 'begging' the most finicking absurdity, my failure to accept Ted's offer the most reckless and offensive stupidity. Evidently I was unworthy of any better lot than I had. I should live and die an 'inmate' and a drudge. I deserved nothing else. In short, I was a very despicable lad, had probably lost the only friend I should ever have, and, certainly, I was very miserable. Monday brought some softening (helped by the fact that Sister Mary was on duty at breakfast-time, so that I escaped the addition of punishment to hunger), and, as the week wore slowly by, hope rose in my breast once more, and with it a return of what I now regard as the common-sense prescience which made me hesitate to adopt a swagman's life. I could not honestly say that I had any definite ideas as to another and more reputable sort of occupation or career. As yet, I had not. But I did vaguely feel that there would be derogation in becoming what my father would have called a 'tramp.'