As Mr Burnett said to me long ago, 'Q———, you will never be one of us. You have ruined your constitution by early temperance.' - Marcus Clarke

Here I am in bed, with vinegar and brown paper over my nose, all the children sick, the baby howling like an unfledged tempest, some £500 to pay to-morrow; and as I sink disgustedly to sleep, Eliza murmurs (through the brown paper), "I hope you have spent a M<small>ERRY</small> C<small>HRISTMAS</small>!"

Convictism having been safely got under hatches, and put to bed in its Government allowance of sixteen inches of space per man, cut a little short by exigencies of shipboard, the cuddy was wont to pass some not unpleasant evenings.

It takes two persons to make a Proper Friendship. The one has to be befriended, the other to be friendly. I'd rather be the friendly man by a darned sight. He gets all the fat off the mutual leg of mutton, and not unfrequently scrapes the bone.