l!"

She shivered. She could hear him grinding his teeth as he sat close to
her. She felt the same inarticulate helplessness that she had felt about
all the miseries of Lashnagar. She wanted, most passionately, to do
something for him. His telling her about it was, in itself, a challenge.

"But how did you live all the time, wasting your money like that?"

He laughed harshly.

"It's easy to live south the line--in Australasia, anyway, if you're a
drunkard. There's a lot of money about, you know. Men come from
up-country with a big cheque to knock out--shearers and men like that,
who live in the backblocks for months, hundreds of miles from hotels.
They come down from the backblocks with perhaps a hundred pounds to
spend on a week of blissful unconsciousness. Sailors come in and get
paid off too. There's a lot of freehandedness. They treat the whole bar.
If you won't drink with them, they knock you out of time before you
know where you are, sit on your chest and pour it down your neck. Once
you're in a pub in Australia you can stay in all day on nothing. And you
can get in for threepence--the price of a pint of beer. And you don't
get out till you're kicked out drunk."

"Oh--" she gasped.

"The devil of it is getting hold of the threepence. Sometimes you meet a
pal and borrow it. Sometimes you pawn something and get it. If the Home
boat's in, you go down to the quay, pick out a new chum--that's anyone
from the Old Country--offer to show him round a bit, and he naturally
treats you. Then you're in the haven."

He spoke cynically, bitterly. She grasped at his sleeve, as though she
would pull him back.

"Oh--," she gasped.

"D-don't keep s-saying 'Oh' like that!" he cried impatiently. "S-say
s-something s-sensible."

"Does your mother know all about the way you live?" she asked
desperately.

"I told her. I enjoyed letting her know what they drove me to. But she
doesn't understand. They don't ever understand, these easy, half-alive,
untempted folks! She's never been away from a world of afternoon calls,
broughams and shopping! I tell her I'm a beer-bum--yes, that's the word
for it in Australia! Not a pretty word--not a pretty thing either! I
gave the Mater and Pater a picture of myself once--broken shoes tied on
with string, trousers tied on with a bit of rope because I'd sold my
braces for threepence--slinking along in the gutter outside the Theatre
Royal picking up cigarette ends that had been thrown away! Co