yokes, quietly chewing the cud. Riders and drivers
conformed to no rule of the road, and maintained a headlong pace implying
a great contempt for horseflesh, and no more respect for their own limbs
than for the neck of the merest stranger. From the bars, which were
frequent, came a babel of laughter and shouting. To the 'Pea-souper'
every thing was new and wonderful.

A squalid aboriginal swathed in an old tablecloth fresh from some
breakfast started from a corner, pointing a long, dirty finger at Done,
and grinning a wide grin.

'Yah! dam new chum!' he said. Then he laughed as only an Australian black
can, with a glitter of seemingly endless white teeth, and a strident roar
that might have been heard a mile off.

'New chum!' This appellation had been thrown at Done a dozen times.

'Pea-souper!' trumpeted a horseman through his hands. There were
sarcastic references to 'limejuice,' and Jim was asked by several
strangers, with a show of much concern, if his mother knew he was out.
'Does your mother know you're out?' was then a new and popular street
gag, and the query implied a childlike incapability of taking care of
himself on the part of the person addressed, and was generally accepted
as a choice piece of humour. Jim heard so many references to the 'new
chum's bundle' that he was presently satisfied he owed all these
unpleasant little attentions to the burden he carried, and he determined
to rid himself of it at the first opportunity. Turning into Bourke
Street, he eventually found a hotel where there was comparative peace.
Entering, he called for a drink.

'New chum?' queried the barman, after serving him.

'I suppose I am,' replied Jim. 'Look here, would you mind telling me what
in the devil's name a new chum is?'

'A new chum is a man fresh from home.'

'From England?'

'Scotland, Ireland, anywhere else, if he's green and inexperienced.
Miners from the Californian fields don't rank as new chums.'

'And how am I known as a new chum?'

The barman grinned. 'That'll tell on you all over the place,' he said,
indicating the bag. 'That's a true new chum's bundle. No Australian would
expatriate himself by carrying his goods in that fashion. He makes them
up in a roll, straps them, and carries them in a sling on his back. His
bundle is then a swag. The swag is the Australian's national badge.'

'Well, I'm hanged if that isn't a little thing to make a row about. Do
you reckon it shameful to be a new chum, then