re rather expensive. Those
who do use a rod are usually satisfied with a bamboo--a very good rod
it makes, too, although inconvenient to carry when travelling--but the
generality of people use hand lines. And the visitor must not be
persuaded that he can always get good fishing without going some
distance from Sydney or Melbourne. That there is some excellent sport to
be obtained in Port Jackson in summer is true, but it is lacking in a
very essential thing--the quietude that is dear to the heart of every
true fisherman.

_Denison Gets Another Ship_

Owing to reduced circumstances, and a growing hatred of the hardships of
the sea, young Tom Denison (ex-supercargo of the South Sea Island
trading schooner _Palestine_) had sailed from Sydney to undertake the
management of an alleged duck-farm in North Queensland. The ducks, and
the vast area of desolation in which they suffered a brief existence,
were the property of a Cooktown bank, the manager of which was Denison's
brother. He was a kind-hearted man, who wanted to help Tom along in the
world, and, therefore, was grieved when at the end of three weeks the
latter came into Cooktown humping his swag, smoking a clay pipe, and
looking exceedingly tired, dirty, and disreputable generally. However,
all might have gone well even then had not Mrs. Aubrey Denison, the
brother's wife, unduly interfered and lectured Tom on his "idle and
dissolute life," as she called it, and made withering remarks about the
low tastes of sailors other than captains of mail steamers or officers
in the Navy. Tom, who intended to borrow L10 from his brother to pay his
passage back to Sydney to look for a ship, bore it all in silence, and
then said that he should like to give up the sea and become a
missionary in the South Seas, where he was "well acquainted with the
natives."

Mrs. Aubrey (who was a very refined young lady) smiled contemptuously,
and turned down the corners of her pretty little mouth in a manner that
made the unsuccessful duck-farmer boil with suppressed fury, as she
remarked that _she_ had heard of some of the shocking stories he had
been telling the accountant and cashier of the _characters_ of the
people in the South Seas, and _she_ quite understood _why_ he wished to
return there and re-associate with his vulgar and wicked companions.
Now, she added, had he stuck bravely to work with the ducks, the Bank
(she uttered the word "Bank" in the tone of reverence as one would