Australian Tales - Setis

lips, but with souls as scrappy as devilled bones. Who invariably praise
everything on the table, play with the baby and talk nonsense to its
mother, but who really care more for the cook than for any other member
of the household — and if your bill of fare is reduced in consequence of
a corresponding turn in your circumstances, they will never enter your
door at all. Those are the creatures to whom I allude when I say that I
dislike such droppers in at my table more than I do cold potatoes
— which by the way is the sole diet I would prescribe for all such
domestic marauders.
Some time ago I went by invitation to dine on board a ship which was
lying at one of the quays in Sydney harbour, when the worthy captain
remarked to the mate in tones of surprise, that there were no “one o'clock
boys on board that day.” On my asking what he meant by “one o'clock
boys,” he said there was a host of persons of Mr. Grubb's class, who
made a practice of foraging for a dinner almost every day, and they were
a nuisance to him as well as to many other skippers in port. “Ay, and
they are a pest to many good-natured housewives on shore too,” I
remarked, with a shrug which old reminiscences stirred up.
I would not wantonly annoy any one with my remarks, but I cannot
here resist offering a word or two of friendly counsel to those who
choose to take it. [In general, those dinner hunters cannot plead poverty
as an excuse for their sponging habits, indeed a poor man with a manly
spirit would rather dine off a brown biscuit any day than wheedle himself
into a needy household if there was the least risk of upsetting their little
domestic arrangements.] I would say to the Grubbs and the “one o'clock
boys” of Sydney, go to some good restaurant, and get ninepenny-worth
of dinner, or more if you want it, and go to your friends' tables only when
you are invited. Try that manly method for twelve months or so, and you
may probably regain your reputation, or at any rate lose some of your
notoriety as mid-day nuisances. Then you may occasionally drop in at
dinner time and your friends will not consider you are intruding but will
perhaps be really glad to see you. But don't go exclusively for what you
can get to eat or drink — bah! such selfishness is only worthy of the big
monkey in the Government Gardens and his tribe in general.