m at Parramatta next year, and the
squatter was sent there the following summer, having been ruined by the
drought, the rabbits, the banks, and a wool-ring. The two became very
friendly, and had many a sociable argument about the feasibility--or
otherwise--of blowing open the flood-gates of Heaven in a dry season
with dynamite.

Tom was discharged a few years since. He knocks about certain suburbs
a good deal. He is seen in daylight seldom, and at night mostly in
connection with a dray and a lantern. He says his one great regret is
that he wasn't found to be of unsound mind before he went up-country.

ENTER MITCHELL

The Western train had just arrived at Redfern railway station with a lot
of ordinary passengers and one swagman.

He was short, and stout, and bow-legged, and freckled, and sandy. He had
red hair and small, twinkling, grey eyes, and--what often goes with such
things--the expression of a born comedian. He was dressed in a ragged,
well-washed print shirt, an old black waistcoat with a calico back, a
pair of cloudy moleskins patched at the knees and held up by a plaited
greenhide belt buckled loosely round his hips, a pair of well-worn,
fuzzy blucher boots, and a soft felt hat, green with age, and with no
brim worth mentioning, and no crown to speak of. He swung a swag on to
the platform, shouldered it, pulled out a billy and water-bag, and then
went to a dog-box in the brake van.

Five minutes later he appeared on the edge of the cab platform, with an
anxious-looking cattle-dog crouching against his legs, and one end of
the chain in his hand. He eased down the swag against a post, turned
his face to the city, tilted his hat forward, and scratched the
well-developed back of his head with a little finger. He seemed
undecided what track to take.

"Cab, Sir!"

The swagman turned slowly and regarded cabby with a quiet grin.

"Now, do I look as if I want a cab?"

"Well, why not? No harm, anyway--I thought you might want a cab."

Swaggy scratched his head, reflectively.

"Well," he said, "you're the first man that has thought so these ten
years. What do I want with a cab?"

"To go where you're going, of course."

"Do I look knocked up?"

"I didn't say you did."

"And I didn't say you said I did.... Now, I've been on the track this
five years. I've tramped two thousan' miles since last Chris'mas, and I
don't see why I can't tramp the last mile. Do you think my old dog wants
a cab?"

The do