more blanky horny heads!"

Third Voice (threateningly): "Who's talkin' about 'orny heads? That
pitch is meant for us, ain't it? Do you mean to say that I've got a
'orny head?"

Here two men commenced snarling at each other, and there was some talk
of punching the causes of the dispute; but the bagman interfered, a
fresh flask was passed round, and some more eternal friendship sworn to.

We dozed off again, and the next time we were aware of anything the
commercial and Moses had disappeared, the rest were lying or sitting in
their bunks, and the third shearer was telling a yarn about an alleged
fight he had at a shed up-country; and perhaps he was telling it for the
benefit of the dissatisfied individual who made the injudicious remark
concerning horny heads.

"So I said to the boss-over-the-board, 'you're a nice sort of a thing,'
I sez. 'Who are you talkin' to?' he says. 'You, bless yer,' I says.
'Now, look here,' he says, 'you get your cheque and clear! 'All right,'
I says, 'you can take that!' and I hauled off and landed him a beauty
under the butt of the listener. Then the boss came along with two
blacklegs, but the boys made a ring, and I laid out the blanks in just
five minutes. Then I sez to the boss, 'That's the sort of cove I am,' I
sez, 'an' now, if you---"

But just here there came a deep, growling voice--seemingly from out of
the depths of the forehold--anyway, there came a voice, and it said:

"For the Lord's sake give her a rest!"

The steward turned off the electricity, but there were two lanterns
dimly burning in our part of the steerage. It was a narrow compartment
running across the width of the boat, and had evidently been partitioned
off from the top floor of the hold to meet the emigration from Australia
to New Zealand. There were three tiers of bunks, two deep, on the far
side, three rows of single bunks on the other, and two at each end of
the cabin, the top ones just under the portholes.

The shearers had turned in "all standing;" two of them were lying feet
to feet in a couple of outside lower berths. One lay on his stomach with
his face turned outwards, his arm thrown over the side of the bunk, and
his knuckles resting on the deck, the other rested on the broad of his
back with his arm also hanging over the side and his knuckles resting on
the floor. And so they slept the sleep of the drunk.

A fair, girl-faced young Swiss emigrant occupied one of the top berths,
with his curly, flaxe