unter
lunches! D'you know what counter lunches are?"

She shook her head. It seemed as though he were trying to shock her, as
he piled on his miseries to her.

"Three times a day the hotel keeper in Australia covers his counter in
all sorts of food--cold meat, bread, cheese, pickles, cakes--oh, just
everything there is going. He doesn't want you to go out to get food,
you see, and perhaps get caught by some other pub. You don't have to
pay. You just eat what you like, so long as you go on buying drinks or
having them bought for you. There's a lot more there to eat than you
want. You don't want much when you're boozing. I lived on counter
lunches once--crayfish and celery mostly, with vinegar and cayenne--for
four months. I spent not a single penny on food the whole time. Then I
nearly died in hospital. They had me in the padded cell for three days."

"Were you mad?" she whispered, wishing he would tell her no more, but
fascinated by the horror of it all, the pity of it. "I think you are
mad, really, even now--talking like this, almost as if you're proud of
it."

"No, I'm not mad--only the usual pink rat sort of madness. The thing's
obvious," he said, shrugging his shoulders. It was not obvious to her;
he had put her into a maelstrom of puzzles, but she did not tell him so.
She preferred to think it out for herself. But suddenly she coupled her
little broken arm and the barrel as effect and cause.

He went on muttering. She had great difficulty in hearing all he said.

"At night, at kicking out time, you can hang on, sometimes, to a man
with some cash and get asked to kip with him for the night. You can get
a bed for a shilling a night in many places. It isn't a feather-bed. If
there is no Good Samaritan about you go and lie down in the
Domain--that's the public park, you know--praying to whatever gods there
be that it won't rain. You never get a decent wash, and as soon as the
hotels are open at six o'clock you start again--if you can get the
entrance fee. If you haven't, you cadge round till you have."

He broke off, staring bitterly away from her, his knees drawn up, his
chin resting on them.

"And you told your mother about it--and your father?" she said.

"Yes, every word, and more. Things I wouldn't tell you, because you're
a girl, and I've still some respect for girls. Things that happened in
Rio and Rosario--some of the women there, the rich women--Lord, they're
the devil's own!" He reflected grimly. "I