“‘Not now,’ says Harry.
“So we joined a gang going west. There was a rush away to some place where somebody had found gold, and Harry and I thought we might do as well as any o’ them.
“Ay, Archie, that was a rush. ‘Tinklers, tailors, sodjers, sailors.’ I declare we thought ourselves the best o’ the whole gang, and I think so still.
“We were lucky enough to meet an old digger, and he told us just exactly what to take and what to leave. One thing we did take was steamboat and train, as far as they would go, and this helped us to leave the mob a bit in the rear.
“Well, we got high up country at long last—”
“Hold!” cried Harry. “He’s missing the best of it. Is that fair, Johnnie?”
“No, it isn’t fair.”
“Why, Johnnie, we hadn’t got fifty miles beyond civilisation when, what with the heat and the rough food and bad water, Johnnie, my London legs and my London heart failed me, and down I must lie. We were near a bit of a cockatoo farmer’s shanty.”
“Does it pay to breed cockatoos?” said Archie innocently.
“Don’t be the death o’ me, Johnnie. A cockatoo farmer is just a crofter. Well, in there Bob helped me, and I could go no farther. How long was I ill, Bob?”