t
extraordinary influence is it that induces you to spend your earnings as
soon as you get them?"

"Well, I don't know, sir, unless it is we get 'em too seldom. You see,
when we work for a year and don't get no money perhaps all that time,
when we do have our wages all in a lump, it seems such a lot we don't
think how hard it cost us to get it; and we don't know what to do with
it, so we just spend it. If we got paid, you see, as people down in the
towns, at the end of the week, and had to keep ourselves, we might get
into the way for saving a little now and then; but as it is, we never
know how to do it, and I expect we never shall. You see we ain't like
those fellows who let their old women look after their money, who tell
'em it is all gone, while all the time they've got it put away in their
old stocking."

"Well, why don't you get married, and have an old woman, as you call it;
and by her means you may make yourself more happy, and be enabled, after
a time, to become your own master?"

"I've often thought I wouldn't mind that sort o' thing, sir; but where
do you think I would get a young woman as'd look at the likes of me?
When they comes out to this country, specially when they gets up here
into the bush, they're so mighty saucy, they cocks up their noses at
fellers likes us; and besides, you know masters don't care to have men
with what they calls 'incumberances.'"

"No doubt there is some truth in that; but if you by your thriftiness
can possess yourself of a little money, and be in a position to
establish yourself, you'd have no difficulty, I should say, in inducing
some industrious girl to accept you; take my advice now, and try."

"All right, sir, I will," replied the man; after which the conversation
took another turn, and the party very shortly separated.

As they were leaving the fire, Bob Smithers remarked to John that all
his advice to the man would be lost in five minutes. He told him it was
impossible to instil prudence into the minds of such; "their whole
enjoyment," he said, "is in having their spree. They perceive no
pleasure in hoarding money to provide comforts in their old age; the
very thought of it is distasteful to them, and as to that fellow
(pointing to the man John had been conversing with), if he succeeded in
passing the year without drawing his wages, some of his mates would tell
him he was a fool; and thinking so himself, he would not rest until he
had been paid and gone through h