"Has he got it as bad as that! 'Bad' isn't any name for it. He's the
stubbornest man I over met, and he's full of the most furious hatred
against the capitalists. He has it as a personal feeling. Then the life
he's got is sufficient to drive a man mad."

"Selecting is pretty hard," agreed Nellie, sadly.

"Nellie and I know a little about that, Mr. Sim," said Ned.

"Well, Jones' selection is a hard one," went on Sim, goodhumouredly. "I
prefer to sell trotters, when I sell out like this, to attempting it. The
soil is all stones, and there is not a drop of water when the least
drought comes on. Poor Jones toils like a team of horses and hardly gets
sufficient to keep him alive. I never saw a man work as he does. For a
man who thinks and has ideas to be buried like that in the bush is
terrible. He has no one to converse with. He goes mooning about sometimes
and muttering to himself enough to frighten one into a fit."

"Does he still do any printing?" asked Nellie, archly.

"Oh, the printing," answered Sim, laughing again. "He initiated me into
the art of wood-engraving. You see, Mr. Hawkins"--turning to Ned--
"Jones hasn't got any type, and of course he can't afford to buy it, but
he's got hold of a little second-hand toy printing press. To print from
he takes a piece, of wood, cut across the grain and rubbed smooth with
sand, and cuts out of it the most revolutionary and blood-curdling
leaflets, letter by letter. If you only have patience it's quite easy
after a few weeks' practice."

"Does he print them?" asked Ned