I did not come upon Jim Gray, the slab-sided one, in Port Lawson, so was unable to bid him mind his ensanguined p's and q's. Indeed, up to this point, I sternly repressed my social instincts, and refrained, so far as might be, from entering into talk with any one. But after the third day I began to feel that my freedom was assured, and that the chances of meeting any one from the Orphanage neighbourhood were too remote to be worth considering. My tramping became then so much the more enjoyable, for the reason that I chatted with all and sundry who showed sociable inclinations, and at that time this included practically every wayfarer one met in rural Australia. (There has been no great change in this respect.) 'The curse o' this country, my sonny boy,' said one red-bearded traveller whom I met and walked with for some miles, 'is the near-enough system. It's a great country, all right; whips o' room, good land, good climate, an' all the like o' that; but, you mark my words, the curse of it is the "near-enough" system--that an' the booze, o' course; but mainly it's the "near-enough" system, from the nail in your trousers in place of a brace button to the saplin's tied wi' green-hide in place of a gate, an' the bloomin' agitator in parliament in place of a gentleman. It's "near-enough" that crabs us, every time. Look at me! I owned a big store in Kempsey one time. You wouldn't think it to look at me, would ye? Well, an' I didn't booze, either. But it was "near-enough" in the accounts, an' "near-enough" in the buyin', an' "near-enough" in the prices, an'--here I am, barely makin' wages--worse wages than I paid counter hands--cuttin' sleepers. But I get me tucker out of it, an' me bitter 'baccy, an' that; an'---well, it's "near-enough," an' so I stick at it.'