lub bore, and let him have
a table to himself; the head waiter usually looks a more important
personage than any of the members or guests; and men may be seen giving
each other dinners from much the same ignoble motives as those which
actuate their fellows elsewhere. In the Cassowary Club, on the night of
which we tell, the Bo'sun was giving his dinner of necessity to honour
the draft of hospitality drawn on him by Grant. At the next table a
young solicitor was entertaining his one wealthy client; near by a band
of haggard University professors were dining a wandering scientist, all
hair and spectacles--both guest and hosts drinking mineral waters
and such horrors; while beyond them a lot of racing men were swilling
champagne and eating and talking as heartily as so many navvies. A few
squatters, down from their stations, had fore-gathered at the centre
table, where each was trying to make out that he had had less rain than
the others. The Bo'sun and his guests were taken in hand by the head
waiter, who formerly had been at a London Club, and was laying himself
out to do his best; he had seen that Gillespie had "Wanderers' Club"
on his cards, and he knew, and thanked his stars that he did know, what
"Wanderers' Club" on a man's card meant. His fellow-waiters, to whom he
usually referred as "a lot of savages," were unfortunately in ignorance
of the social distinction implied by membership of such a club.

For a time there was nothing but the usual commonplace talk, while the
soup and fish were disposed of; when they reached the champagne and the
entrees, things become more homelike and conversation flowed. A bushman,
especially when primed with champagne, is always ready to give his
tongue a run--and when he has two open-mouthed new chums for audience,
as Gordon had, the only difficulty is to stop him before bed-time; for
long silent rides on the plain, and lonely camps at night, give him a
lot of enforced silence that he has to make up for later.

"Where are you from last, Gordon?" said the Bo'sun. "Haven't seen you in
town for a long time."

"I've been hunting wild geese," drawled the man from far back, screwing
up one eye and inspecting a glass of champagne, which he drank off at
a gulp. "That's what I do most of my time now. The old man--Grant, you
know--my boss--he's always hearing of mobs of cattle for sale, and
if I'm down in the south-west the mob is sure to be up in the far
north-east, but it's all one to him.