Page:While the Billy Boils, 1913.djvu/279

 Just as Australia was fading from view, someone looked through a glass, and said in a sad, tired kind of voice that he could just see the place where the Dunbar was wrecked.

Several passengers were leaning about and saying 'Europe! E-u-rope!' in agonised tones. None of them were going to Europe, and the new chums said nothing about it. This reminds us that some people say 'Asia! Asia! Ak-kak-Asia!' when somebody spills the pepper. There was a pepper-box without a stopper on the table in our cabin. The fact soon attracted attention.

The new chum came along and asked us whether the Maoris were very bad round Sydney. He'd heard that they were. We told him that we had never had any trouble with them to speak of, and gave him another show.

'Did you ever hear of the wreck of the Dunbar?' we asked.

He said that he never 'heerd tell' of it, but he had 'heerd' of the wreck of the Victoria.

We gave him best.

The first evening passed off quietly, except for the vinously-excited shearers. They had sworn eternal friendship with a convivial dude from the saloon, and he made a fine specimen fool of himself for an hour or so. He never showed his nose for'ard again.

Now and then a passenger would solemnly seek the steward and have a beer. The steward drew it out of a small keg which lay on its side on a shelf with a wooden tap sticking out of the end of it―out of the end of the keg, we mean. The beer tasted like warm