Henry Lawson

“ We cursed society because we weren’t rich men, and then we felt better and conversation drifted lazily round various subjects and ended in that of smoking.
“How I came to start smoking?” said Mitchell. “Let’s see.” He reflected. “I started smoking first when I was about fourteen or fifteen. I smoked some sort of weed—I forget the name of it—but it wasn’t tobacco; and then I smoked cigarettes—not the ones we get now, for those cost a penny each. Then I reckoned that, if I could smoke those, I could smoke a pipe.” ”

“ The moon looked like a big new copper boiler set on edge on the horizon of the plain, with the top turned towards us and a lot of old rags and straw burning inside. We had tramped twenty-five miles on a dry stretch on a hot day—swagmen know what that means. ”

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