"Y'know I haven't a bean above the couple o' dollars to take me to Perth."
"Oh, dry it up," cried the mate. "What y'come ashore for? You're not goin' without a spot. It's on me. My shout."
"Shout it back in Perth, then."
"Wot'll y'ave?"
And through the swing doors they went.
"Best an' bitter's mine."
II
Jack had not let himself be cleaned out entirely, as Tom had. Tom seemed to want to be absolutely stumped. But Jack with deeper sense of the world's enmity, and his own need to hold his own against it, had posted a couple of cheques to Lennie to hold for him. Save for this he too was cleaned out.
The same little engine of the same little train of four years ago shrieked her whistle. The North-West crowd drifted noisily out of the Hotel and down the platform, packing into the third class compartment, in such positions as happily to negotiate the spittoons.
"Let's go forward," said Jack. "We might as well have cushions, if we're not smoking."