“You got to understand that once we swore off the drink, we had to take on the cure and stick to it. We’d never been that weak-minded that any justice could have put us on the Blackfellers’ Act.*The cure was a small dose of the same every four hours. Between doses you suffer hell and you watch the clock like it was going to spit at you. * In several Australian States, a magistrate is empowered to declare an offenderan habitual drunkard, whereupon it is an offence for a hotel keeper to serve him with liquor. The aborigines are also debarred from hotels, and to serve them with liquor under any circumstances is an offence. Colloquially, the habitual drunkard comes under theBlackfellows ’ Act.

“I got the hoo-jahs that night, and Ben got ’emfirst thing in the morning, the same as me. He didn’t tell me so. Had no need to, or me to tell him. I knew by the way he kept looking sideways and back over his shoulders that he was having the gin hoo-jahs all normal and proper.

“Towards evening that first day, I made a fire in the stove and got us a hot drink of meat extract. We couldn’t bear the stink of it. So we sat and called each other dirty names tillmed’cine time came round again. At midnight we had ourdoch-an’-doris. A real snorter for the night. I was a bit worse than Ben, so he seen me into bed, and, soon after, I heard him shout good-night from his stretcher in the front room.

“I had a cat-nap, but I was awake long beforemed’cine time at four in the morning. I waited till four to take the bottle in to Ben. He was sitting on the stretcher with his feet on the floor, and he was holding his head with both hands to stop himself looking backwards at them hoo-jahs. Y’see, after a day of doing that, your neck aches like hell. I gave him his snort, and had one myself. Then I covered him up after he got back on the stretcher, and went back to my own bunk.