It was Norris's diversion, having none other, to scrape acquaintance, where, how, and with whom he could. Many a long dull talk he held upon the benches or the grass; many a strange waif he came to know; many strange things he heard, and saw some that were abominable. It was to one of these last that he owed his deliverance from the Domain. For some time the rain had been merciless; one night after another he had been obliged to squander fourpence on a bed and reduce his board to the remaining eightpence: and he sat one morning near the Macquarrie Street entrance, hungry, for he had gone without breakfast, and wet, as he had already been for several days, when the cries of an animal in distress attracted his attention. Some fifty yards away, in the extreme angle of the grass, a party of the chronically unemployed had got hold of a dog, whom they were torturing in a manner not to be described. The heart of Norris, which had grown indifferent to the cries of human anger or distress, woke at the appeal of the dumb creature. He ran amongst the Larrikins, scattered them, rescued the dog, and stood at bay. They were six in number, shambling gallowsbirds; but for once the proverb was right, cruelty was coupled with cowardice, and the wretches cursed him and made off. It chanced that this act of prowess had not passed unwitnessed. On a bench near by there was seated a shopkeeper's assistant out of employ, a diminutive, cheerful, red-headed creature by the name of Hemstead. He was the last man to have interfered himself, for his discretion more than equalled his valour; but he made haste to congratulate Carthew, and to warn him he might not always be so fortunate. “They're a dyngerous lot of people about this park. My word! it doesn't do to ply with them!” he observed, in that RYCY AUSTRYLIAN English, which (as it has received the imprimatur of Mr. Froude) we should all make haste to imitate. “Why, I'm one of that lot myself,” returned Carthew. Hemstead laughed and remarked that he knew a gentleman when he saw one. “For all that, I am simply one of the unemployed,” said Carthew, seating himself beside his new acquaintance, as he had sat (since this experience began) beside so many dozen others. “I'm out of a plyce myself,” said Hemstead. “You beat me all the way and back,” says Carthew. “My trouble is that I have never been in one.” “I suppose you've no tryde?” asked Hemstead. “I know how to spend money,” replied Carthew, “and I really do know something of horses and something of the sea. But the unions head me off; if it weren't for them, I might have had a dozen berths.” “My word!” cried the sympathetic listener. “Ever try the mounted police?” he inquired. “I did, and was bowled out,” was the reply; “couldn't pass the doctors.” “Well, what do you think of the ryleways, then?” asked Hemstead. “What do YOU think of them, if you come to that?” asked Carthew.