t girls had a fair time
of it."

"An occasional one does, though they all earn their money, but most have
a hard time of it. I don't mean all places are like mine were, but
there's no liberty. A working girl's liberty is scanty enough, goodness
knows"--she spoke scornfully--"but at least she mixes with her own
kind and is on an equality with most she meets. When her work is over,
however long it is, she can do just exactly as she likes until it starts
again. A servant girl hasn't society or that liberty. For my part I'd
rather live on bread again than be at the orders of any woman who
despised me and not be able to call a single minute of time my own.
They're so ignorant, most of these women who have servants, they don't
know how to treat a girl any more than most of their husbands know how to
treat a horse."

The naive bush simile pleased Ned a little and he laughed, but soon
relapsed again into silence. Then Nellie spoke of "Paddy's Market," one
of the sights of Sydney, which she would like him to see. Accordingly
they strolled to his hotel, where he put on a clean shirt and a collar
and a waistcoat, while she waited, looking into the shops near by; then
they strolled slowly Haymarketwards, amid the thronging Saturday night
crowds that overflowed the George-street pavement into the roadway.

CHAPTER IV.

SATURDAY NIGHT IN PADDY'S MARKET.

Paddy's Market was in its glory, the weekly glory of a Sydney Saturday
night, of the one day in the week when the poor man's wife has a few
shillings and when the poor caterer for the poor man's wants gleans in
the profit field after the stray ears of corn that escape the
machine-reaping of retail capitalism. It was filled by a crushing,
hustling, pushing mass of humans, some buying, more bartering, most swept
aimlessly along in the living currents that moved ceaselessly to and fro.
In one of these currents Ned found himself caught, with Nellie. He
struggled for a short time, with elbows and shoulders, to make for
himself and her a path through the press; experience soon taught him to
forego attempting the impossible and simply to drift, as everybody else
did, on the stream setting the way they would go.

He found himself, looking around as he drifted, in a long low arcade,
brilliant with great flaring lights. Above was the sparkle of glass
roofing, on either hand a walling of rough stalls, back and forward a
vista of roofing and stalls stretching through distant arches,