“I thought I’d never get to bed,” he went on, coming to light his pipe at the candle and then returning to the bed he had taken Ned’s sheets from.  “First one joker in, then another, and the old man ’ud stay open all night for a tanner.  Past two!  Jolly nice hour for a chap that’s to be up at six, ain’t it?”

He pulled off his boots and vest and threw himself down on the bare mattress in his trousers.  “Ain’t you fellows going to bed to-night?” he enquired.

“It’s about a fair thing,” said Ned, feeling nervous and exhausted with lack of sleep.  So the young fellow blew the candle out and went over to the bed a adjoining Jack’s.  As he lay down Jack picked up a boot and tapped the wall alongside him gently.  “I think I hear her,” he remarked.  In a few moments there was an answering tap.

“Who’s that?” asked Ned.

“The slavey next door,” answered Jack, upon which an interchange of experience took place between Jack and the young fellow in which gable windows and park seats and various other stage-settings had prominent parts.

At last they all slept but Ned.  Drowsy as he was he could not sleep.  It was not that he thought much of Nellie, at least he did not feel that he was thinking of her.  He only wanted to sleep and forget and he could not sleep.  The moonshine came through the curtainless window and lit up the room with a strange mysterious light.  The snoring breathing that filled the room mingled with other snoring sounds that seemed to come up the stairway and through the walls.  The stench of the room stifled him.  The drunkards who tossed there, groaning; this unemployed lad who lay with his white limbs kicked free and bathed in the moonlight; the tired waiter who lay motionless, still dressed; were there with him.  The clock-bells struck the quarters, then the hour.

Three o’clock.

He had never felt so uncomfortable, he thought, so uneasy.  He twisted and squirmed and rubbed himself.  Suddenly a thought struck him.  He leaned up on his elbow for a moment, peering with his eyes in the scanty light, feeling about with his hand, then leaped clean out of the bed.  It swarmed with vermin.

Like most bushmen, Ned, who was sublimely tolerant of ants, lizards and the pests of the wilds generally, shivered at the very thought of the parasites of the towns.  To strip himself was the work of an instant, to carefully re-dress by the candle-end he lighted took longer; then he stepped to the English lad’s side and woke him.

“Hello?” said the lad, rubbing his eyes in sleepy astonishment.

“What’s the matter?”

“I can’t sleep with bugs crawling over me,” said Ned.  “I’m going to camp out in the park.  Here’s a ‘note’ to help you along and here’s the address to go to if you conclude to go up to Queensland for the union.  I’ll see about it first thing in the morning so he’ll expect you.  The ‘note’s’ yours whether you go or not.”