hat wretched old De Wet again!" he says. "Small hope your dog has
of catching him! Why don't you get a garden gate like mine, so that he
won't get in?"

"No; he can't get in at your gate," is the reply; "but I think his
commando are in your back garden now."

Then follows a frantic rush. Your neighbour falls downstairs in his
haste, and the commando, after stopping to bite some priceless pot
plants of your neighbour's as they come out, skips easily back over the
fence and through your gate into the street again.

If a horse gets in his hoofs make no impression on the firm turf of the
Parramatta grass, and you get quite a hearty laugh by dropping a chair
on him from the first-floor window.

The game fowls of your other neighbour come fluttering into your garden,
and scratch and chuckle and fluff themselves under your plumbago bush;
but you don't worry. Why should you? They can't hurt it; and, besides,
you know that the small black hen and the big yellow one, who have
disappeared from the throng, are even now laying their daily egg for you
behind the thickest bush.

Your little dog rushes frantically up and down the front bed of your
garden, barking and racing, and tearing up the ground, because his rival
little dog, who lives down the street, is going past with his master,
and each pretends that he wants to be at the other--as they have
pretended every day for the past three years. The performance he is
going through doesn't disturb you. Why should it? By following the
directions in this article you have selected plants he cannot hurt.

After breakfasting at noon, you stroll out, and, perhaps, smooth with
your foot, or with your spade, the inequalities made by the hens; you
gather up casually the eggs they have laid; you whistle to your little
dog, and go out for a stroll with a light heart.

THIRSTY ISLAND

Travellers approaching a bush township are sure to find some distance
from the town a lonely public-house waiting by the roadside to give
them welcome. Thirsty (miscalled Thursday) Island is the outlying pub of
Australia.

When the China and British-India steamers arrive from the North the
first place they come to is Thirsty Island, the sentinel at the gate of
Torres Straits. New chums on the steamers see a fleet of white-sailed
pearling luggers, a long pier clustered with a hybrid crowd of every
colour, caste and creed under Heaven, and at the back of it all a little
galvanized-iron town shining i