OYSTERS AD LIB. 



which it was quite right should be destroyed. It was 

 too ridiculous that there should ever be a gibe or jeer 

 against Australian society. In the first place, a little 

 smirch on the honour of the family was only grey, not 

 black ; for in the olden days they sent them out there 

 for nothing, and certain families who were supposed 

 to be connected with notorious convicts — " old lags " 

 — had no relations at all with a conviction against 

 them. One forgot that parts of Australia had ever 

 been penal settlements on appreciating the signs of 

 prosperity and the charming manners of the people. 



I got used to the way the middle class dressed, but 

 it was a bit startling to see the women and girls garbed 

 so becomingly and the men in some families wear what 

 looked like the worst of reach-me-downs. Wandering 

 about I thought I must have some oysters, so went 

 into Emerson's in King Street. " Give me a dozen 

 oysters," I said. " Well, we're not particular out 

 here to a few," was the reply. " Have a big dish- 

 ful ; they only cost you a shilling." So I began and 

 finished a couple of dozen of what I shall always think 

 the best oysters anywhere among the smaller kind. 



There seemed two divides — I do not mean social 

 classes exactly — for there were more in this humdrum 

 community than in the great European countries. The 

 two seemed divided between the workers and the racing 

 people ; it is so in many countries, yet in Australia — and 

 that is the beauty of it — no one in business seemed afraid 

 of taking an interest in horse-racing. A chap would 

 walk across from a bank and have a pound on a race — he 

 would have got the sack for the same heinous offence 

 in England : I nearly did once — because I went to 

 see Goldseeker win the Jubilee. Everyone could talk 

 horse, and even my religious relatives would discuss 

 the Melbourne Cup. Australia was, and may be now. 



