like a fish to a fly at the chance of getting to town free of cost.
After all, why be hard on him? He was not much over twenty, and, at that
age, it was natural enough--especially in a place like this--for a lad
to flit like a butterfly from every cup that took his restless fancy.

Restless? . . . h'm! It was the word Purdy had flung back at him,
earlier in the evening. At the time, he had rebutted the charge, with a
glance at fifteen months spent behind the counter of a store. But there
was a modicum of truth in it, none the less. The life one led out here
was not calculated to tone down any innate restlessness of temperament:
on the contrary, it directly hindered one from becoming fixed and
settled. It was on a par with the houses you lived in--these flimsy
tents and draught-riddled cabins you put up with, "for the time being"--
was just as much of a makeshift affair as they. Its keynote was change.
Fortunes were made, and lost, and made again, before you could say Jack
Robinson; whole townships shot up over-night, to be deserted the moment
the soil ceased to yield; the people you knew were here to-day, and gone
--sold up, burnt out, or dead and buried--to-morrow. And so, whether
you would or not, your whole outlook became attuned to the general
unrest; you lived in a constant anticipation of what was coming next.
Well, he could own to the weakness with more justification than most. If
trade continued to prosper with him as it did at present, it would be no
time before he could sell out and joyfully depart for the old country.

In the meantime, why complain? He had much to be thankful for. To take
only a small point: was this not Saturday night? To-morrow the store was
closed, and a string of congenial occupations offered: from chopping the
week's wood--a clean and wholesome task, which he gladly performed--
through the pages of an engrossing book to a botanical ramble round old
Buninyong. The thought of it cheered him. He stooped to caress his two