n before you're brought to trial! Or
would you do a pearling trip in less exciting but more honest fashion?
Would you ship aboard a lugger with five good companions, and go
a-cruising down the New Guinea coast, working hard all day long, and
lying out on deck at night, smoking and listening to the lip-lap of the
water against the counter, or spinning yarns of all the world?"

"What else?"

"Why, what more do you want? Do you hanker after a cruise aboard a
stinking _beche-de-mer_ boat inside the Barrier Reef, or a run with the
sandalwood cutters or tortoiseshell gatherers to New Guinea; or do you
want to go ashore again and try an overlanding trip half across the
continent, riding behind your cattle all day long, and standing your
watch at night under dripping boughs, your teeth chattering in your
head, waiting for the bulls to break, while every moment you expect to
hear the Bunyip calling in that lonely water-hole beyond the fringe of
Mulga scrub?"

"You make me almost mad with longing."

"And yet, somehow, it doesn't seem so fine when you're at it. It's when
you come to look back upon it all from a distance of twelve thousand
miles that you feel its real charm. Then it calls to you to return in
every rustle of the leaves ashore, in the blue of the sky above, in the
ripple of the waves upon the beach. And it eats into your heart, so that
you begin to think you will never be happy till you're back in the old
tumultuous devil-may-care existence again."

"What a life you've led! And how much more to be envied it seems than
the dull monotony of our existence here in sleepy old England."

"Don't you believe it. If you wanted to change I could tell you of
dozens of men, living exactly the sort of life I've described, who would
only too willingly oblige you. No, no! Believe me, you've got chances of
doing things we could never dream of. Do them, then, and let the other
go. But all the same, I think you ought to see more of the world I've
told you of before you settle down. In fact, I hinted as much to your
father only yesterday."

"He said that you had spoken of it to him. Oh, how I wish he would let
me go!"

"Somehow, d'you know, I think he will."

I put the cutter over on another tack, and we went crashing back through
the blue water towards the pier. The strains of the band came faintly
off to us. I had enjoyed my sail, for I had taken a great fancy to this
bright young fellow sitting by my side. I felt I should