We knew that we needn't expect any mercy from Stiffner; but something
had to be done, so I said to Bill:

"Something's got to be done, Bill! What do you think of it?"

Bill was mostly a quiet young chap, from Sydney, except when he got
drunk--which was seldom--and then he was a customer, from all round.
He was cracked on the subject of spielers. He held that the
population of the world was divided into two classes--one was spielers
and the other was the mugs. He reckoned that he wasn't a mug. At
first I thought he was a spieler, and afterwards I thought that he was
a mug. He used to say that a man had to do it these times; that he
was honest once and a fool, and was robbed and starved in consequences
by his friends and relations; but now he intended to take all that he
could get. He said that you either had to have or be had; that men
were driven to be sharps, and there was no help for it.

Bill said:

"We'll have to sharpen our teeth, that's all, and chew somebody's
lug."

"How?" I asked.

There was a lot of navvies at the pub, and I knew one or two by sight,
so Bill says:

"You know one or two of these mugs. Bite one of their ears.

"So I took aside a chap that I knowed and bit his ear for ten bob,