“What did he say?” asked Ned, laughing, wondering at the same time how Nellie came to know people who drank wine and spent half-sovereigns on chicken lunches.

“Oh!  He didn’t say anything much, he told me.  He couldn’t manage to explain, he thought, that when he was at work and easy in his mind he didn’t care what he had to eat but that when he didn’t know what he’d do by the end of the week he felt like having a good meal if he never had another.  He thought that made the half-sovereign go furthest.  He’s funny in some things.”

“I should think he was, a little.  How did you know him?”

“I met him where we’re going tonight.  He’s working on some newspaper in Melbourne now.  I haven’t seen him or heard of for months.”

She chatted on, rather feverishly.

“Did you ever read ‘David Copperfield?’”

Ned nodded, his mouth being full.

“Do you recollect how he used to stand outside the cookshops?  It’s quite natural.  I used to.  It’s pretty bad to be hungry and it’s just about as bad not to have enough.  I know a woman who has a couple of children, a boy and a girl.  They were starving once.  She said she’d sooner starve than beg or ask anybody to help them, and the little girl said she would too.  But the boy said he wasn’t going to starve for anybody, and he wasn’t going to beg either; he’d steal.  And sure enough he slipped out and came back with two loaves that he’d taken from a shop.  They lived on that for nearly a week.”  Nellie laughed forcedly.

“What did they do then?” asked Ned seriously.

“Oh!  She had been doing work but couldn’t get paid.  She got paid.”

“Where was her husband?”

“Don’t husbands die like other people?” she answered, pointedly.  “Not that all husbands are much good when they can’t get work or will always work when they can get it,” she added.

“Are many people as hard up as that in Sydney, Nellie?” enquired Ned, putting down his knife and fork.

“Some,” she answered.  “You don’t suppose a lot of the people we saw this morning get over well fed, do you?  Oh, you can go on eating, Ned! it’s not being sentimental that will help them.  They want fair play and a chance to work, and your going hungry won’t get that for them.  There’s lots for them and for us if they only knew enough to stop people like that getting too much.”

By lifting her eyebrows she drew his attention to a stout coarse loudly jewelled man, wearing a tall silk hat and white waistcoat, who had stopped near them on his way to the door.  He was speaking in a loud dictatorial wheezy voice.  His hands were thrust into his trouser pockets, wherein he jingled coins by taking them up and letting them fall again.  The chink of sovereigns seemed sweet music to him.  He stared contemptuously at Ned’s clothes as that young man looked round; then stared with insolent admiration at Nellie.  Ned became crimson with suppressed rage, but said nothing until the man had passed them.