y, and
secure his good will, was to disagree with him on every possible point.

FOR AULD LANG SYNE

These were ten of us there on the wharf when our first mate left for
Maoriland, he having been forced to leave Sydney because he could not
get anything like regular work, nor anything like wages for the work he
could get. He was a carpenter and joiner, a good tradesman and a rough
diamond. He had got married and had made a hard fight for it during the
last two years or so, but the result only petrified his conviction that
"a lovely man could get no blessed show in this condemned country,"
as he expressed it; so he gave it best at last--"chucked it up," as he
said--left his wife with her people and four pounds ten, until such time
as he could send for her--and left himself with his box of tools, a pair
of hands that could use them, a steerage ticket, and thirty shillings.

We turned up to see him off. There were ten of us all told and about
twice as many shillings all counted. He was the first of the old push to
go--we use the word push in its general sense, and we called ourselves
the mountain push because we had worked in the tourist towns a good
deal--he was the first of the mountain push to go; and we felt somehow,
and with a vague kind of sadness or uneasiness, that this was the
beginning of the end of old times and old things. We were plasterers,
bricklayers, painters, a carpenter, a labourer, and a plumber, and were
all suffering more or less--mostly more--and pretty equally, because
of the dearth of regular graft, and the consequent frequency of the
occasions on which we didn't hold it--the "it" being the price of one
or more long beers. We had worked together on jobs in the city and
up-country, especially in the country, and had had good times together
when things were locomotive, as Jack put it; and we always managed to
worry along cheerfully when things were "stationary." On more than one
big job up the country our fortnightly spree was a local institution
while it lasted, a thing that was looked forward to by all parties,
whether immediately concerned or otherwise (and all were concerned
more or less), a thing to be looked back to and talked over until
next pay-day came. It was a matter for anxiety and regret to the local
business people and publicans, and loafers and spielers, when our jobs
were finished and we left.

There were between us the bonds of graft, of old times, of poverty, of
vagabond