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Updated: June 15, 2025
As they stood in George-street, waiting for their 'bus, a high-heeled, tightly-corsetted, gaily-hatted larrikiness flounced out of the side door of a hotel near by. A couple of larrikin acquaintances were standing there, shrivelled young men in high-heeled pointed-toed shoes, belled trousers, gaudy neckties and round soft hats tipped over the left ear.
It is in fact a choice of two evils, and the only remedy that we ourselves can suggest is for the persecuted traveller to select a good stout larrikin and pay him freely to keep at arm’s length his detestable brothers and sisters in professional beggary.
Every night, on my way home at ten, or a quarter past, I found the larrikin grouped in considerable force at several of the street corners, and he always gave me this pleasant salutation: "Hello, Mark!" "Here's to you, old chap! "Say Mark! is he dead?" a reference to a passage in some book of mine, though I did not detect, at that time, that that was its source.
"What do you say," he drawled, "if we go and have a look at a dancing saloon one of these larrikin dancing saloons?" "I'd like it awfully," said one Englishman. "Most interesting" said the other. "I've heard such a lot about the Australian larrikin. What they call a basher in England, isn't it? eh, what? Sort of rough that lays for you with a pal and robs you, eh?"
There may be shades of difference, but these can easily be too fine for detection by the incompetent eye of the passing stranger. In the larrikin he will not be able to discover a new species, but only an old one met elsewhere, and variously called loafer, rough, tough, bummer, or blatherskite, according to his geographical distribution.
Some of the older ones patronised the flowing beards and sartorial styles "all the go way up in Ironbark," yet if put Out-Back would have been as much new chums as city people, and were wont to regard honest unvarnished statements of bush happenings as "snake yarns"; while the youths of these parts combined the appearance of the far bush yokel and the city larrikin, and were to be seen following the plough with cigarettes in their mouths.
But another fat, roundabout, roly-poly of humanity was to settle the servant question finally, within a day or two. "Larrikin" had been visiting foreign parts at Wandin, towards the west, and returning with a new wife, stolen from one "Jacky Big-Foot," presented her to the missus.
James Nippit's pet work was in connection with his reform movement, the Young Men's Mission, a design for upraising the youths of the larrikin and criminal classes. The Young Men's Mission had attracted some attention, people were found willing to contribute to the good work, and this fact gave rise to some imposition.
Which is much worse. If a man wants your money, he ought to ask for it, or send round a subscription-list, instead of juggling about the country, with an Australian larrikin; a "brumby," with as much breed as the boy; a brace of chumars in gold-laced caps; three or four ekka-ponies with hogged manes, and a switch-tailed demirep of a mare called Arab because she has a kink in her flag.
"'Pon my honour, Miss Melvyn, I had no idea it was you, when I said " Here he boggled completely, which had the effect of reviving my laughter. "You had no right to be dressed like that deceiving a fellow. It wasn't fair." "That's the best of it. It shows what a larrikin Don Juan sort of character you are. You can't deceive me now if you pretend to be a virtuous well-behaved member of society."
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