Page:Triangles of life, and other stories.djvu/114

 City Road, for a day or two, until we had time to look round.

We hadn't been allowed to land at Teneriffe, on account of the plague in Australia, so the custom officers weren't strict. I got on with them all right. You get tobacco cheap at Teneriffe.

We took the train from the Albert Docks to Fenchurch Street, third class, and the worst accommodation I ever experienced. We came over London East, but I was too knocked out to take much notice of it. A wilderness of houses, where you might easily get bushed. The first difference that struck me was the absence of awnings and verandahs.

At Fenchurch Street I said good-bye to my chum of the voyage. He was a lanky Victorian, from West Australia last. He must have been near seven feet. I thought I was the tallest man on board until a couple of days after King George's Sound (he'd been down sea-sick), when I came on deck one morning and saw him standing by the rail. By way of introduction I went and stood back-to-back with him. He grinned. " That's nothing," he said, " there's some terribly tall fellows where I come from." He came from Bendigo way, in Victoria. He was of a type of bushman that I always liked—the sort that seem to get more good-natured the longer they grow; yet are hard-knuckled, and would accommodate a man who wanted to fight, or thrash a bully, in a good-natured way. He wore a good-humoured grin at all times, and was nearly always carrying somebody's baby about, or making tea at the galley for some of the women, or cadging extras