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Updated: May 1, 2025
The bricklayer ran like a cow, his joints stiffened by years of toil; the larrikins, light on their feet as hares, kept the pace with a nimble trot, silent and dangerous, conscious of nothing but the desire and power to kill. As he turned into Abercrombie Street, Chook ran level with him, then stooped swiftly and caught his ankle.
A little later on, my impressions became confirmed; for, just as we were piped down to breakfast after `wash and scrub decks, and I was telling Larrikins, who sat alongside me at the mess-table, what I had heard, the engine-room gong sounded, and the word was passed to get up steam as quickly as possible.
"Ah, perhaps you'd better `go through the ropes, my lads, properly, and begin at once at your `bag and hammock drill, as all new boys should; though sometimes, they wait till they get uniforms first," said he, hailing, as he spoke, one of the first-class boys standing by the police office, detailed to act as messengers, like our friend Larrikins. "Boy, there!
"As he turned into the street where he lived, he noticed a little group of bush larrikins standing at the corner. And they moved uneasily when they caught sight of him, and, as he passed, they touched and lifted their hats to him.
So saying, he set about knotting the lanyard of Irish Mick's hammock; and, after slinging it from the hooks in the deck beams, over the mess- table where the famished lad had enjoyed such a rare `tuck out' that day, Larrikins went on to explain how the blankets should be `tucked in' to the frail structure and wrapped round the occupant, so as to prevent him from tumbling out, which Larrikins declared, almost with tears in his eyes, he should deeply regret were such a catastrophe to occur.
It is from this section of the community that the 'larrikins, as they are called, are recruited, roughs of the worst description, insulting and often robbing people in Melbourne itself, and moving about in gangs with whose united force the police is powerless to cope. Sometimes they break into hotels and have 'free drinks' all round, maltreating the landlord if he protests.
Larrikins and the other first-class boy had meanwhile collared `Ugly' and taken the knife from him, to prevent his doing any further mischief with it; and, as fighting was prohibited on board, and they might possibly have been brought up on the quarter-deck as accomplices, should the affair get wind and come to the notice of the ship's police, the two, who no doubt were old and tried hands at the game, thought it best to take my advice and `keep the matter dark, as they said.
Nearer and nearer we got into the coast, all hands pulling with a will; Larrikins, who was stroke, giving the fellows a touch of his old style when he rowed in the captain's gig of the training-ship; the whaler, with the middy in command, running us hard, though, and the second cutter labouring up astern.
"Whe-e-e-e-e! Who-e-o-e-o! Whe-eep!" So the boatswain's whistle rang out through the ship with a shrill iteration that pierced my ears in the fresh and chilly air next morning, awaking me, if possible, in even yet more startling fashion than Larrikins' successful trick of the previous evening. "Whee-e-ah! Whee-e-ah!"
"The master-at-arms told me, sir, as how I wer fur to see as these novices wos slung their hammicks propingly," replied Larrikins glibly. "An' I wer jist a-seein' to do it, sir."
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