“It seems quite a favour to get work here,” observed Ned.

“If you were a girl you’d soon find out what a favour it is sometimes,” answered Nellie quietly, as they came out into the street.

CHAPTER III.

SHORN LIKE SHEEP.

“How many hours do you work?” asked Nellie of the waitress.

“About thirteen,” answered the girl, glancing round to see if the manager was watching her talking.  “But it’s not the hours so much.  It’s the standing.”

“You’re not doing any good standing now,” put in Ned.  “Why don’t you sit down and have a rest?”

“They don’t let us,” answered the waitress, cautiously.

“What do they pay?” asked Nellie, sipping her tea and joining in the waitress’ look-out for the manager.

“Fifteen!  But they’re taking girls on at twelve.  Of course there’s meals.  But you’ve got to room yourself, and then there’s washing, clean aprons and caps and cuffs and collars.  You’ve got to dress, too.  There’s nothing left.  We ought to get a pound.”

“What——­”

“S-s-s!” warned the waitress, straightening herself up as the manager appeared.

* * * * *

They were in a fashionable Sydney restaurant, on George-street, a large, painted, gilded, veneered, electro-plated place, full of mirrors and gas-fittings and white-clothed tables.  It was not busy, the hour being somewhat late and the day Saturday, and so against the walls, on either side the long halls, were ranged sentinel rows of white-aproned, white-capped, black-dressed waitresses.

They were dawdling over their tea—­Ned and Nellie were, not the waitresses—­having dined exceedingly well on soup and fish and flesh and pudding.  For Ned, crushed by more sight-seeing and revived by a stroll to the Domain and a rest by a fountain under shady trees, further revived by a thunderstorm that suddenly rolled up and burst upon them almost before they could reach the shelter of an awning, had insisted on treating Nellie to “a good dinner,” telling her that afterwards she could take him anywhere she liked but that meanwhile they would have something to cheer them up.  And Nellie agreed, nothing loth, for she too longed for the momentary jollity of a mild dissipation, not to mention that this would be a favorable opportunity to see if the restaurant girls could not be organised.  So they had “a good dinner.”

“This reminds me,” said Nellie, as she ate her fish, “of a friend of mine, a young fellow who is always getting hard up and always raising a cheque, as he calls it.  He was very hard up a while ago, and met a friend whom he told about it.  Then he invited his friend to go and have some lunch.  They came here and he ordered chicken and that, and a bottle of good wine.  It took his last half-sovereign.  When he got the ticket the other man looked at him.  ‘Well,’ he said, ’if you live like this when you’re hard up, how on earth do you live when you’ve got money?’”