"I don't know about that, sir; I expect it would be a precious long time before I would have enough to buy a flock of sheep: and besides, if I had any, I wouldn't know what to do with them; I shouldn't be allowed to graze 'em on other folk's runs; and, after slaving away for I don't know how long, I reckon I should just be swindled out of 'em in the end, and be as poor and 'miserable as a bandicoot' after all: besides, I'd rather not have the bother with them, but just have my spree, and 'knock down my pile,' as usual."
"But, my good fellow, if you were possessed of a flock of sheep, you could, by paying a rent, be allowed to depasture it on some squatter's run; and as to being swindled out of your property, the law of the land would protect you from that."
"I don't know nothing about the law of the land, sir; but I know as how a mate of mine, who served with a master on the Barwan for five years, and was paid his wages in sheep, took his flock to a piece of country he had bought from his master and set his self up. He hadn't been at that game though for more nor two years, when a flood on the river took off half his sheep, and his old master brought him in a bill for some hundreds of pounds for stores and things my mate had got, and he wanted to be paid right off. Now, my mate couldn't pay him; so he had to give him up his sheep and go shepherding again. So you see, sir, I may just as well spend my money when I get it, as let myself be cheated out of it at the end."
"Your friend's case was certainly a hard one, but he seemed to be the victim of misfortune more than of an exacting master; but that does not show, because he did not succeed, that you or any other industrious man should fail. Take my advice and try it; refrain from taking your wages, let them accumulate in the hands of your employer, and when they have reached such a sum as to be of service to you, ask him to invest it, and I am sure you will have no cause to complain; besides, remember as you get old, if you have no friends to care for you and you are destitute as you are now, you will starve."
"That's just it, you see, sir; if I go to save money now (but I know I can't, for I never could), if I dies I've got no one to give it to. I've got no friends, leastwise I don't know of none; and I am sure when I knew there was something coming to me, I would want to spend it; while as long as I live, I can always earn enough to keep me."
"But you say you've never attempted to save your wages; you cannot tell how you may be influenced until you make the attempt."
"There is no use of my trying, sir, I am sure I never could; and I may just take my money when it is due me, and have my spree."
"I can't understand how it is you persist in being so prodigal. What extraordinary influence is it that induces you to spend your earnings as soon as you get them?"
"Well, I don't know, sir, unless it is we get 'em too seldom. You see, when we work for a year and don't get no money perhaps all that time, when we do have our wages all in a lump, it seems such a lot we don't think how hard it cost us to get it; and we don't know what to do with it, so we just spend it. If we got paid, you see, as people down in the towns, at the end of the week, and had to keep ourselves, we might get into the way for saving a little now and then; but as it is, we never know how to do it, and I expect we never shall. You see we ain't like those fellows who let their old women look after their money, who tell 'em it is all gone, while all the time they've got it put away in their old stocking."
"Well, why don't you get married, and have an old woman, as you call it; and by her means you may make yourself more happy, and be enabled, after a time, to become your own master?"