bout the bush, so he answered straight:

"Until you go back to Australia," he said.

"Don't you know," I said, "that I have served the government and got a
free pardon?"

He grinned all over his ugly face when I said this.

"We know all about you, Maloney," he answered. "If you want a quiet
life, just you go back where you came from. If you stay here, you're a
marked man; and when you are found tripping it'll be a lifer for you,
at the least. Free trade's a fine thing but the market's too full of men
like you for us to need to import any."

It seemed to me that there was something in what he said, though he had
a nasty way of putting it. For some days back I'd been feeling a sort of
homesick. The ways of the people weren't my ways. They stared at me in
the street; and if I dropped into a bar, they'd stop talking and edge
away a bit, as if I was a wild beast. I'd sooner have had a pint of old
Stringybark, too, than a bucketful of their rot-gut liquors. There
was too much damned propriety. What was the use of having money if you
couldn't dress as you liked, nor bust in properly? There was no sympathy
for a man if he shot about a little when he was half-over, I've seen a
man dropped at Nelson many a time with less row than they'd make over a
broken window-pane. The thing was slow, and I was sick of it.

"You want me to go back?" I said.

"I've my order to stick fast to you until you do," he answered.

"Well," I said, "I don't care if I do. All I bargain is that you keep
your mouth shut and don't let on who I am, so that I may have a fair
start when I get there."

He agreed to this, and we went over to Southampton the very next
day, where he saw me safely off once more. I took a passage round to
Adelaide, where no one was likely to know me; and there I settled, right
under the nose of the police. I'd been there ever since, leading a quiet
life, but for little difficulties like the one I'm in for now, and for
that devil, Tattooed Tom, of Hawkesbury. I don't know what made me
tell you all this, doctor, unless it is that being lonely makes a man
inclined to jaw when he gets a chance. Just you take warning from me,
though. Never put yourself out to serve your country; for your country
will do precious little for you. Just you let them look after their own
affairs; and if they find difficulty in hanging a set of scoundrels,
never mind chipping in, but let them alone to do as best they can. Maybe
they'll remember how th