hady trees, further
revived by a thunderstorm that suddenly rolled up and burst upon them
almost before they could reach the shelter of an awning, had insisted on
treating Nellie to "a good dinner," telling her that afterwards she could
take him anywhere she liked but that meanwhile they would have something
to cheer them up. And Nellie agreed, nothing loth, for she too longed for
the momentary jollity of a mild dissipation, not to mention that this
would be a favorable opportunity to see if the restaurant girls could not
be organised. So they had "a good dinner."

"This reminds me," said Nellie, as she ate her fish, "of a friend of
mine, a young fellow who is always getting hard up and always raising a
cheque, as he calls it. He was very hard up a while ago, and met a friend
whom he told about it. Then he invited his friend to go and have some
lunch. They came here and he ordered chicken and that, and a bottle of
good wine. It took his last half-sovereign. When he got the ticket the
other man looked at him. 'Well,' he said, 'if you live like this when
you're hard up, how on earth do you live when you've got money?'"

"What did he say?" asked Ned, laughing, wondering at the same time how
Nellie came to know people who drank wine and spent half-sovereigns on
chicken lunches.

"Oh! He didn't say anything much, he told me. He couldn't manage to
explain, he thought, that when he was at work and easy in his mind he
didn't care what he had to eat but that when he didn't know what he'd do
by the end of the week he felt like having a good meal if he never had
another. He thought that made the half-sovereign go furthest. He's funny
in some things."

"I should think he was, a little. How did you know him?"

"I met him where we're going tonight. He's working on some newspaper in
Melbourne now. I haven't seen him or heard of for months."

She chatted on, rather feverishly.

"Did you ever read 'David Copperfield?'"

Ned nodded, his mouth being full.

"Do you recollect how he used to stand outside the cookshops? It's quite
natural. I used to. It's pretty bad to be hungry and it's just about as
bad not to have enough. I know a woman who has a couple of children, a
boy and a girl. They were starving once. She said she'd sooner starve
than beg or ask anybody to help them, and the little girl said she would
too. But the boy said he wasn't going to starve for anybody, and he
wasn't going to beg either; he'd steal. And sure enoug