terry," so he said; one in a convent at Cooktown learning "bianner und bainting"; one son was a miner on his own account, and another carried the mail round to Palmerville, a route of over two hundred miles, and he did it every week. So they all worked hard.
Ahlers also had a wife who went by the name of "Mine Vife," and dog he called "Shmoker."
The Prince of Wales Hotel, the official name of "Mine Haus"—stood in the middle of the right-hand side of the only street in Maytown. On its left was a dilapidated and empty shanty that in the "good times" used to be the Queensland National Bank, and on its right was a vacant lot covered with empty meat and jam tins. Among these a few dirty aboriginees squatted, smoking stumpy old bits of broken pipes—and the goats browsed. Beyond this was the hut of a Chinaman—he was the cook at "Mine Haus"—and beyond that two tumbledown shanties, which ended the street.
The other side was occupied by three Chinese stores and by a place that in the old days was a "pub," but which at the time of this incident was inhabited by a man and his wife who acted as caretakers of a lot of worn-out old mining machinery; also of the premises of the deserted bank before mentioned. This family was notable chiefly for a lot of squalling children and for one fat daughter who played upon a broken-down piano with one finger. Below them was chaos and goats as far as Paddy Fahy's, which had lately blossomed into a licensed house where drinks cost only sixpence as against a shilling at "Mine Haus."
Because of this there was war between "Mine Haus" and "Dot Damned Irish Shanty," where drinks cost but sixpence, for it is cheaper to get drunk at sixpence a drink than at double that, a fact that Maytown did not take long to grasp. The landlord of "Mine Haus" could recollect the time when the mid-
