ire.

"How do you like being a man?"

"Oh, it would be all right when you got used to it, I suppose, but I
must say it is a little awkward at first. I'm chafed all over."

"I'm out of practice, too, but on the whole I consider we did very
well. I don't see that we can do much good by getting up early
to-morrow. The first train does not leave before half-past eleven."

"I think eight o'clock time enough," said May, who was completely tired
out, although she would not give in.

"Well, we'll have a well-earned rest," said Hil, turning in alongside
her friend.

"Do you gentlemen want breakfast?" said a voice at the door, the next
morning.

"What's the time?"

"Past eight o'clock."

"All right. We'll be out in a few minutes."

When they appeared breakfast was in full swing, and a large proportion
of the men round the table wore the railway uniform. As they entered,
Hil heard one of them say:

"He was the greatest card I ever saw in all my life."

"Who's that, Joe?" asked another.

"Why that cove as went by the six goods. He was wearing togs that did
not belong to him, and if I don't mistake he had old Bill Adams's hat
on."

"What did he do, Joe?"

"Do," said Joe, laughing. "He comes to the office in a fluster and says:
'First, Rome.' I says: 'There ain't no first Rome, Roma you mean.' 'You
know what I want,' says he, and when he took his change I noticed his
hands was snowy white: he had a ring on and I could hear the gold
chinking in his pocket."

"What's his name?" asked the landlady.

"I don't know, but I'm going up to the 'Royal' to enquire about Bill's
hat."

The girls had listened greedily to all this, and after breakfast they
disguised themselves further by changing their wigs, in case they should
meet the boys, and went on to the "Royal" to hear the name of the
passenger to Roma.

"We'll follow by the 1.50," said Hil, when her enquiries were answered.

CHAPTER XXII.

DALBY.

As the 1.50 train was preparing to start, four men stood round the
ticket-office. They were the boys and the girls. The former had chosen
clothes similar to those Hal had used with so much success, while the
latter assumed a dress that might be worn by anyone without being
conspicuous.

There is no country in the world where it is more difficult to judge a
person by his dress than Australia. You may sit beside a rough,
vulgar-looking fellow, with an old cabbage-tree hat and a dirty pair of
moles, with all