Following Frenchy's sickness, Australia and I chummed together as Frenchy, by common consent, was allowed to perch on a coil of rope on the main hatch just forward of the mast during the night watches, the mate winking at this whenever the weather was not too bad. On such nights Australia and I would stump the wet deck and we got to be very good friends. Unlike so many of the crew, I remember his name, John Roth, and from what he told me at various times I knew that he had come from a good family, as such things go, people in easy circumstances. His grandfather had settled in England, coming originally from southern Germany, and his father had taken over and extended a business founded at that time. Roth had received a good education, evidently, though he was of a shiftless temperament and his talk savored of the fo'c'sle and not the schools. He unburdened himself as we tramped the deck and I found him to be a charming companion and much deeper than was my idea of the devil-may-care deserter from the _Falls of Ettrick_, who had impressed me as a sort of scatterbrained ne'er-do-well, when we first bumped against each other in the fo'c'sle of the _Fuller_, for my bunk was ahead of his, as we settled down in that first mixup, months before. [Illustration: Australia] "I'll tell you, Felix, there's lots of blokes who have had less chances than me, and is well off today. I always got in the way of trouble and you bet trouble never missed me once." This sounded like something new, so I kept my mouth closed instead of replying after the usual manner of deck chums making conversation. "When my father died," went on Australia, after a long pause, "my brother took the management of the business. He was in the building trade and doing very well at it, supporting mother, two sisters, brother and myself. My brother James had quit school and was helping father at the time of his death. I was at school near Winchester, much to my disgust, for I hated school and wanted to go to sea." Australia paused. He was strangely sober and we paced on deck for a turn or two in silence. Then he continued, and I remember how his words came slowly but with a long-forgotten attention to choice and grammar.