rovided a far more generous dietary than that to which
St. Peter's had accustomed me. I began to lay on flesh, and to feel
strength growing in me.

Mere living, the maintenance of existence, has always been cheap and
easy in Australia, where an entirely outdoor life involves no hardship
at any season. This fact has no doubt played an important part in the
development of the Australian national character. The Australian
national character is the English national character of, say, seventy
or eighty years ago, subjected to isolation from all foreign
influences, and to general conditions much easier and milder than
those of England; given unlimited breathing-space, and freed from all
pressure of confined population; cut off also, to a very great extent,
from the influence of tradition and ancient institutions. For the
lover of our British stock and the student of racial problems, I
always think that Australia and its people offer a field of unique
interest.

I did not come upon Jim Gray, the slab-sided one, in Port Lawson, so
was unable to bid him mind his ensanguined p's and q's. Indeed, up to
this point, I sternly repressed my social instincts, and refrained, so
far as might be, from entering into talk with any one. But after the
third day I began to feel that my freedom was assured, and that the
chances of meeting any one from the Orphanage neighbourhood were too
remote to be worth considering. My tramping became then so much the
more enjoyable, for the reason that I chatted with all and sundry who
showed sociable inclinations, and at that time this included
practically every wayfarer one met in rural Australia. (There has been
no great change in this respect.)

'The curse o' this country, my sonny boy,' said one red-bearded
traveller whom I met and walked with for some miles, 'is the near-enough
system. It's a great country, all right; whips o' room, good
land, good climate, an' all the like o' that; but, you mark my words,
the curse of it is the "near-enough" system--that an' the booze, o'
course; but mainly it's the "near-enough" system, from the nail in
your trousers in place of a brace button to the saplin's tied wi'
green-hide in place of a gate, an' the bloomin' agitator in parliament
in place of a gentleman. It's "near-enough" that crabs us, every time.
Look at me! I owned a big store in Kempsey one time. You wouldn't
think it to look at me, would ye? Well, an' I didn't booze, either.
But it was "near-enough