"And where will you go?" asked Betty anxiously.
"Oh, I'd be sixpence, you see, because I'm thirteen and a half," said John. "I can't afford to pay sixpence. It's always harder for a fellow to get on than for a girl. That's why you hear more about self-made men than self-made women—they're thought more of. No bed for me, I expect, for some time to come. I'll have to sleep in the Domain. I heard a fellow talking this morning, and he said he's been sleeping there for a week now. And, you know, Peterborough, the artist I told you about—well, he slept for a week in a barrel!"
"How much money have you got?" asked Betty.
"Eightpence!" said John. "No one seems to want an errand boy to-day."
Betty began to feel very doleful at being one step above John in this the beginning of their career. But she dared not offer to lend to him, he had been so very insistent upon paying her back her penny, and paying for his own breakfast and lemonade and buns.
He took her and showed her two houses which bore the words, "Bed and breakfast, 6d.!" and then he led the way to the Domain, having been through it many times with his grandfather, while to stay-at-home Betty it was no more than a name. Macquarie Street lay asleep as they travelled through it and past Parliament House and the Hospital and the Public Library.
It never for a moment occurred to Betty that Dot was domiciled in that street of big high houses and hushed sounds. She knew Dot's school address was "Westmead House, Macquarie Street," but she had not the remotest idea that she and John were travelling down Macquarie Street past Westmead House.
Just inside the Domain gates they paused to admire Governor Burke's statue, and to count their money again in its shade.
Then John pointed out to her the tree-shaded path that runs to Woollomooloo Bay and the great sweeping grass stretch that lay on one side of it.
Many men were there already, full length upon the grass, their hats over their eyes, asleep or callous to waking.