Hughes found out at once that all hope of earning a livelihood by teaching in the bush was out of the question. His money was gone: he had to exist, so he took the first job that came his way. A band of timber-cutters about to go for a month's sojourn in the woods needed a cook, so Hughes became their potslinger. Frail as he was, he seemed to thrive on hardship. In succession he became sheep shearer, railway labourer, boundary rider, stock runner, scrub-cleaner, coastal sailor, dishwasher in a bush hotel, itinerant umbrella-mender and sheep drover. With a small band he once brought fifty thousand sheep down from Queensland into New South Wales. For fifteen weeks he was on the tramp, sleeping at night under the stars, trudging the dusty roads all day. At the end of this trip occurred the incident that made him deaf. Over night he passed from the sun-baked plains to a high mountain altitude. Wet with perspiration, he slept out with his flocks and caught cold. The result was an infirmity which is only one of many physical handicaps that this amazing little man has had to overcome throughout his tempestuous life. Yet he has fought them all down. As he once humorously said: "If I had had a constitution I should have been dead long ago." After all his strenuous bushwhacking the year 1890 found him running a small shop in the suburbs of Sydney. By day he sold books and newspapers: at night he repaired locks and clocks in order to get enough money to buy law books. Into his shop drifted sailors from the wharves with their grievances. Born with a passionate love of freedom, these sounds of revolt were as music to his ears. Figuratively he sat at the feet of Henry George, whose "Progress and Poverty" helped to shape the course of his thinking. Lincoln's letters and speeches were among his favourites, too. One night a big dock bruiser grabbed a package of tobacco off the counter, but before he could move a step Hughes had caught him under the jaw with his fist. His burly associates cheered the game little shopkeeper. They now came to him with their troubles and he was soon their friend, philosopher and guide. For years the synonym for Australian Labour was strike. When the unions were merged into a national body Hughes was the unanimous choice of the husky stevedores for leader. He became the Great Restrainer. Never was influence of lip and brain over muscle and temper better demonstrated. The wild men of the wharves--the roughest crowd in all labour--were under his spell. This nimble-footed shopkeeper flouted them with his wit: ruled with his mind. On a certain occasion five hundred of them were crowded into a building at Sydney yelling bloody murder and clamouring for violence. Suddenly the tiny figure of Hughes appeared on the platform before them. At first they yelled him down, but he stood smiling, resolute, undaunted. He began to talk: the tumult subsided: he stepped forward, stamped his foot and said in a voice that reached to every corner: