after a few weeks' practice."

"Does he print them?" asked Ned

"Print them! I should say he did. Every old scrap of paper he can collect
or got sent him he prints his leaflets on and gets them distributed all
over the country. Many a night I've sat up assisting with the pottering
little press. Talk about Nihilism! Jones vows that there is only one way
to cure things and that is to destroy the rule of Force."

"He's along while starting," remarked Nellie with a slight sneer. "Those
people who talk so much never do anything."

"Oh, Jones isn't like that," answered Sim, with cheerful confidence.
"He'll do anything that he thinks is worth while. But I suppose I'm
horrifying you, Mr. Hawkins? Miss Lawton here knows what we are and is
accustomed to our talk."

"It'll take considerable to horrify me," replied Ned, standing down as
Nellie straightened herself out for a move-on. "You can blow the whole
world to pieces for all I care. There's not much worth watching in it as
far as I can see."

"You're pretty well an anarchist," said the brown-bearded trotter-seller,
his kindly intellectual face lighted up. "It'll come some day, that's one
satisfaction. Do you think that many here will regret it?" He waved his
hand to include the crowd that moved to and fro before them, its voices
covered with the din of its dragging feet.

"That'll do, Sim!" said Nellie. "Don't stuff Ned's head with those absurd
anarchisticall night-mares of yours. We're going; we've got somewhere to
go. Good-bye! Tell Jones you saw me when you write, and remember me to
him, will you? I like him--he's so good-hearted, though he does rave."

"He's as good-hearted a man as there is in New South Wales," corroborated
Sim, shaking hands. "I'm expecting to meet a friend--here or I'd stroll
along. Good-bye! Glad to have met you, Mr. Hawkins."

He re-mounted the stall again as they moved off. In another minute he was
lost to their sight as they were swallowed up once more in the living
tide that ebbed and flowed through Paddy's Market.

After that Ned did not notice much, so absorbed was he. He vaguely knew
that they drifted along another arcade and then crossed a street to an
open cobble-paved space where there were shooting-tunnels and
merry-go-rounds and try-your-weights and see-how-much-you-lifts. He
looked dazedly at wizen-faced lads who gathered round ice-cream stalls,
and at hungry folks who ate stewed peas. Everything seemed grimy and
frayed and so