`Tails!' and a friendly oath;
We loved her fair, we had much to learn --

And each was stabbed to the heart in turn
By the girl who -- loved us both.

Or the last day lost on the lignum plain,
When I staggered, half-blind, half-dead,

With a burning throat and a tortured brain;
And the tank when we came to the track again

Was seventeen miles ahead.
Then life seemed finished -- then death began

As down in the dust I sank,
But he stuck to his mate as a bushman can,

Till I heard him saying, `Bear up, old man!'
In the shade by the mulga tank.

. . . . .
He took my hand in a distant way

(I thought how we parted last),
And we seemed like men who have nought to say

And who meet -- `Good-day', and who part -- `Good-day',
Who never have shared the past.

I asked him in for a drink with me --
Jack Ellis -- my old mate, Jack --

But his manner no longer was careless and free,
He followed, but not with the grin that he

Wore always in days Out Back.
I tried to live in the past once more --

Or the present and past combine,
But the days between I could not ignore --

I couldn't help notice the clothes he wore,
And he couldn't but notice mine.

He placed his glass on the polished bar,
And he wouldn't fill up again;

For he is prouder than most men are --
Jack Ellis and I have tramped too far

On different tracks since then.
He said that he had a mate to meet,

And `I'll see you again,' said he,
Then he hurried away through the crowded street

And the rattle of buses and scrape of feet
Seemed suddenly loud to me.

And I almost wished that the time were come
When less will be left to Fate --

When boys will start on the track from home
With equal chances, and no old chum

Have more or less than his mate.
Peter Anderson and Co.

He had offices in Sydney, not so many years ago,
And his shingle bore the legend `Peter Anderson and Co.',

But his real name was Careless, as the fellows understood --
And his relatives decided that he wasn't any good.

'Twas their gentle tongues that blasted any `character' he had --
He was fond of beer and leisure -- and the Co. was just as bad.

It was limited in number to a unit, was the Co. --
'Twas a bosom chum of Peter and his Christian name was Joe.

'Tis a class of men belonging to these soul-forsaken years:
Third-rate canvassers, collectors, journalists and auctioneers.

They are never very shabby, they are never very spruce --
Going cheerfully" target="_blank" title="ad.高兴地，愉快地">cheerfully and carelessly and smoothly to the deuce.

Some are wanderers by profession, `turning up' and gone as soon,
Travelling second-class, or steerage (when it's cheap they go saloon);

Free from `ists' and `isms', troubled little by belief or doubt --
Lazy, purposeless, and useless -- knocking round and hanging out.

They will take what they can get, and they will give what they can give,
God alone knows how they manage -- God alone knows how they live!

They are nearly always hard-up, but are cheerful all the while --
Men whose energy and trousers wear out sooner than their smile!

They, no doubt, like us, are haunted by the boresome `if' or `might',
But their ghosts are ghosts of daylight -- they are men who live at night!

Peter met you with the comic smile of one who knows you well,
And is mighty glad to see you, and has got a joke to tell;

He could laugh when all was gloomy, he could grin when all was blue,
Sing a comic song and act it, and appreciate it, too.

Only cynical in cases where his own self was the jest,
And the humour of his good yarns made atonement for the rest.

Seldom serious -- doing business just as 'twere a friendly game --
Cards or billiards -- nothing graver. And the Co. was much the same.

They tried everything and nothing 'twixt the shovel and the press,
And were more or less successful in their ventures -- mostly less.

Once they ran a country paper till the plant was seized for debt,
And the local sinners chuckle over dingy copies yet.

They'd been through it all and knew it in the land of Bills and Jims --
Using Peter's own expression, they had been in `various swims'.

Now and then they'd take an office, as they called it, -- make a dash
Into business life as `agents' -- something not requiring cash.

(You can always furnish cheaply, when your cash or credit fails,
With a packing-case, a hammer, and a pound of two-inch nails --

And, maybe, a drop of varnish and sienna, too, for tints,
And a scrap or two of oilcloth, and a yard or two of chintz).

They would pull themselves together, pay a week's rent in advance,
But it never lasted longer than a month by any chance.

The office was their haven, for they lived there when hard-up --
A `daily' for a table cloth -- a jam tin for a cup;

And if the landlord's bailiff happened round in times like these
And seized the office-fittings -- well, there wasn't much to seize --

They would leave him in possession. But at other times they shot
The moon, and took an office where the landlord knew them not.

And when morning brought the bailiff there'd be nothing to be seen
Save a piece of bevelled cedar where the tenant's plate had been;

There would be no sign of Peter -- there would be no sign of Joe
Till another portal boasted `Peter Anderson and Co.'

And when times were locomotive, billiard-rooms and private bars --
Spicy parties at the cafe -- long cab-drives beneath the stars;

Private picnics down the Harbour -- shady campings-out, you know --
No one would have dreamed 'twas Peter --

no one would have thought 'twas Joe!
Free-and-easies in their `diggings', when the funds began to fail,

Bosom chums, cigars, tobacco, and a case of English ale --
Gloriously drunk and happy, till they heard the roosters crow --

And the landlady and neighbours made complaints about the Co.
But that life! it might be likened to a reckless drinking-song,

For it can't go on for ever, and it never lasted long.
. . . . .

Debt-collecting ruined Peter -- people talked him round too oft,
For his heart was soft as butter (and the Co.'s was just as soft);

He would cheer the haggardmissus, and he'd tell her not to fret,
And he'd ask the worried debtor round with him to have a wet;

He would ask him round the corner, and it seemed to him and her,
After each of Peter's visits, things were brighter than they were.

But, of course, it wasn't business -- only Peter's careless way;
And perhaps it pays in heaven, but on earth it doesn't pay.

They got harder up than ever, and, to make it worse, the Co.
Went more often round the corner than was good for him to go.

`I might live,' he said to Peter, `but I haven't got the nerve --
I am going, Peter, going -- going, going -- no reserve.

Eat and drink and love they tell us, for to-morrow we may die,