'Scotland, Ireland, anywhere else, if he's green and inexperienced.
Miners from the Californian fields don't rank as new chums.'
'And how am I known as a new chum?'
The barman grinned. 'That'll tell on you all over the place,' he said, indicating the bag. 'That's a true new chum's bundle. No Australian would expatriate himself by carrying his goods in that fashion. He makes them up in a roll, straps them, and carries them in a sling on his back. His bundle is then a swag. The swag is the Australian's national badge.'
'Well, I'm hanged if that isn't a little thing to make a row about. Do you reckon it shameful to be a new chum, then?'
'Not exactly. No offence is intended; the men jeer out of mere harmless devilment. The new churn's got so much to learn here, he can't help looking a born fool as a general thing.'
'And pea-souper and lime-juicer?'
'They've been hazing you properly, mate. Pea-soupers and lime-juicers are strangers off shipboard. They'd never have spotted you, though, without the bundle. There's no raw-meat tint about you; you're tanned like a native. Buy a blue jumper and get a cabbage-tree up in place of that cap, and you'd pass muster as a Sydney-sider born and bred.'
'A cabbage-tree?'
'Hat—straw. Get a second-hand one if you can: they're more appreciated. Usually a man likes to colour his own hat as he colours his own pipe; but you're eager to meet the Australian prejudice against newness. Another bit of advice,' continued the bar-man, who was glad of the chance to turn his vast antipodean experience to some account. 'If you happen to be anybody in particular, as you love your peace of mind and your bodily comfort, don't speak of it.'
'Luckily, I'm nobody in particular.'