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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78216 ***
+
+
+
+
+  Transcriber's Notes
+
+    Italic represented by underscores surrounding the _italic text_.
+
+    Small capitals have been converted to ALL CAPS.
+
+
+
+
+                             THE DASHWOODS
+
+
+                               A SEQUEL TO
+                         “ON AN AUSTRALIAN FARM”
+
+                                   BY
+                               STEELE RUDD
+                              (A.H. DAVIS)
+           AUTHOR OF “On Our Selection;” “Our New Selection;”
+            “Sandy’s Selection;” “Back at Our Selection,” &c.
+
+        _With Fifteen full-page Illustrations by Claude Marquet_
+
+                       N.S.W. BOOKSTALL CO., LTD.
+                                 SYDNEY.
+                                  1920
+
+               _All Dramatic and Picture Rights Reserved._
+
+
+
+
+             _Copyrighted, 1911 by_ ALFRED CECIL ROWLANDSON,
+       _26 Cremorne Road, Cremorne, and 476 George Street, Sydney,_
+                              _Australia_.
+
+
+                Wholly set up and printed in Australia by
+                       John Sands Limited, Sydney.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+                                CHAPTER I.                         Page.
+  STAUNTON, JUNIOR                                                     1
+
+                               CHAPTER II.
+  IT WAS WILL                                                         21
+
+                               CHAPTER III.
+  THE FAMILY VISIT THE THEATRE                                        34
+
+                               CHAPTER IV.
+  THE SHERIFF’S FAITHFUL MAN                                          60
+
+                                CHAPTER V.
+  A LEADING BARRISTER                                                 87
+
+                               CHAPTER VI.
+  MEETING McCLURE                                                    104
+
+                               CHAPTER VII.
+  JAMES AND PETER ATTEND CHURCH                                      122
+
+                              CHAPTER VIII.
+  IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN                                               132
+
+                               CHAPTER IX.
+  PETER IN THE BREAKERS                                              143
+
+                                CHAPTER X.
+  HOME AGAIN                                                         154
+
+
+
+
+ILLUSTRATIONS
+
+
+                                                                   Page.
+  IN THE SALE ROOM                                                    13
+
+  A BREACH OF FRIENDSHIP                                              25
+
+  AT THE THEATRE                                                      41
+
+  MARIA’S BABY                                                        51
+
+  DEALING WITH THE JUDGE’S ORDER                                      65
+
+  IN THE WRONG BOX                                                    85
+
+  ONE IN THE MORNING                                                  91
+
+  “BOOTS O!”                                                          99
+
+  MCCLURE’S HAT                                                      109
+
+  DUNCAN APPROVES                                                    117
+
+  THE CHURCH COLLECTION                                              129
+
+  “NOW, THEN, SPOFFORTH!”                                            135
+
+  “GUESS WHO!”                                                       141
+
+  IN THE BREAKERS                                                    151
+
+  PETER’S LATEST                                                     161
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+Staunton, Junior.
+
+
+The Dashwoods had been a full week in the great metropolis. Each day
+they visited different localities, and each day fresh wonders and
+glories were revealed to them.
+
+They all enjoyed the city—all but Mrs. Dashwood and Maria. The former
+tired of it after the first day, and saw nothing to enthuse about.
+There was nothing real, nothing natural there, to appeal to her homely
+spirit. In her heart she longed to be back at “Fairfield”—longed to
+be amongst the fowls, and the ducks, and the dairy cows, and to see
+again the great wheatfields, and the blue peaks of the ranges, and vast
+plainlands stretching far away to the boundless west. But for the sake
+of the others she endured, without complaint, the stuffy, noisy, dirty
+streets of the artificial city, with its crowds of jostling humanity.
+She even pretended to share the joys and excitements of her family, and
+almost ran her legs off chasing trains and trams to please and humour
+them. An unselfish mother was Mrs. Dashwood, who lived to make life
+light and bright for those around her.
+
+As for Maria, she liked the city “right enough,” but nobody, she
+reckoned, “could see anything, or go anywhere in peace with a blessed
+baby to look after.” And one day, when in extreme distress about the
+infant, she threatened to leave the encumbrance at home with its father
+the next time she came to town. To which resolution Tilly fervently
+said “Amen,” and fired Maria’s family pride. She flew into a temper,
+and proceeded to call Tilly names, and to remind her of things she
+did when at school, but Mrs. Dashwood intervened in time to save the
+situation and preserve the family name.
+
+“Well, Ah baint be goin’ weth yow to-day,” old John informed the
+family at the breakfast table, “mah old friend, Robert Staunton, has
+herd we’re dahn, an’ writes sayin’ as he wants to see me perticler. He
+called twahce a’ready, but we moost abeen aht soomewheres he thenks.”
+
+Mrs. Dashwood wondered how the Stauntons were getting along.
+
+“They roons a produce place soomewheres,” old John answered, “but Ah
+don’t know wheres exactly yet, Eliza.”
+
+Hailing a waiter scurrying past with two trays of “returned empties” in
+his hands, old John questioned him.
+
+“Staunton & Staunton, Solicitors?” interrogated the waiter.
+
+“Hoh! hoh! hoh!—Noh-h,” laughed old John, “none o’ thet kidney. He be
+too honest for thet; Robert’s a big man—bigger’n _me_; an’ his wahfe’s
+a big woman. Theey’re both old friends o’ ahn—ever since theey coomed
+to th’ coontry, and——”
+
+The waiter was impatient and broke in on old John.
+
+“Well, there are several gentlemen in the city bigger than you, sir,”
+he answered, “but I’ll enquire at the office,” and away he glided.
+
+“Ah-h,” muttered old John, “Ah-h!”
+
+Tilly and Polly followed the flunkey’s flying coat-tails with their
+eyes, and smiled.
+
+“A wery erbligin’ young man thet be,” said old John, “wery erbligin’.”
+
+“When there’s half-a-crown put into his hand, father. Ha! ha! ha,” from
+Peter.
+
+“Well, Ah dedn’t give ’n no half-crahn, lad,” replied the parent, in
+defence of the waiter.
+
+“No, but I did, yesterday,” from Peter.
+
+James looked up quickly, and stared at his brother as at one who had
+suddenly gone out of his mind. Tilly and Polly opened their eyes in
+wonder, and exclaimed simultaneously:
+
+“_You_, Peter?”
+
+James struggled hard to suppress his merriment.
+
+“What, _yow_ gin him half-a-crahn?” old John asked, in astonishment.
+
+Peter nodded, but deemed it wise to offer no explanation.
+
+“Did you give it to him in mistake for a penny, Peter?” Tilly asked,
+with a nasty giggle, in which the others joined.
+
+“No,” Peter answered; “a gentleman was leaving in a cab yesterday, and
+he left it with me to give to him,” and he let off a laugh that made
+even those at the most distant table look up.
+
+Tilly and Polly and James felt ashamed of their brother, but old John
+saw only the joke.
+
+“Wery good,” he said; “yow hed ’n all thet tahme, lad, yow hed ’n raht
+enoof.”
+
+They finished breakfast.
+
+“Well, we’re going for a trip in the _Kangaroo_ to Bung Island,” Tilly
+said, rising; and speaking for the female portion of the party; “I
+don’t know what James and Peter intend to do.”
+
+“I’m off again in that train that goes to America,” Peter said, with a
+cheerful chuckle. “It’s the best fun of th’ lot.”
+
+“To Amerikee?” old John repeated curiously; “yow’ll want summat to go
+theer with, lad.”
+
+“Well, I want a couple o’ shillings, anyhow,” Peter said, glad of the
+chance to apply for some more funds. “I haven’t a sixpence left,” and
+he turned a pocket of his vest inside out.
+
+Polly and Tilly accused Peter of imposing upon the good nature of
+their parent, and declared he hadn’t spent a shilling of his money.
+
+“H’m!... Ah-h,” said old John, thoughtfully, then turning to his other
+son: “An’ where be yow goin’, James?”
+
+“Oh, I don’t know,” James drawled, “I mightn’t go anywhere.”
+
+“What’s the use of asking _him_, father?” Peter said, with a grin,
+“he’ll be off to spend the day again in the Art Gallery, gaping at
+those old mares with their heads and tails cocked, squealing for their
+foals. ‘The Cry of the Mothers’; isn’t that what it is called, James”
+(grinning at his brother). “He looked at it for two hours yesterday.”
+
+James treated his brother with contempt.
+
+“Oh, well,” Polly said, fumbling with her gloves, and glancing round
+to see that no outsiders were listening, “when James goes home, Peter,
+perhaps he’ll be able to paint a picture of a donkey with its ears
+cocked, which he’ll call ‘The Bray of the Brother.’”
+
+James treated his brother to a broad grin, while Peter forced a short
+“ha! ha!” and rolled his eyes about.
+
+“She wer’ too smart for yow thet tahme, lad,” old John said, with a
+broad smile. “Too smart!” and, rolling his serviette into a heap, he
+rose and led the way out. The others followed in single file.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The meeting of old John and Robert Staunton, the burly produce dealer,
+was a strenuous and boisterous affair. They greeted each other like two
+roaring lions conducting a courtship. Their handshake was an exhibition
+of strength and endurance.
+
+“Blest if I ever saw you looking so well, John,” Robert hollered,
+caressing the plump hand of his country friend and looking into his
+eyes. “Why, you’re got up like a Suffolk Punch.”
+
+“Ah-h,” rejoined old John, “An’ Ah’ve sin wus Clahdesdales nor yow,
+Robert. Hoh! hoh! hoh!”
+
+Then they “hoh-hoh-hoh-ed” together, and hit each other on the back,
+and rocked about, and finally adjourned to the “Lounge” room, of which
+they soon became the sole occupants.
+
+“Oh, Ah’ve been adoin’ well for a long tahme, now,” old John said, in
+answer to the other’s enquiries about his welfare. “Seasons baint be
+lahke ’n were in olden days, Robert. Markets are fairish, now, an’
+lan’s gone oop won’erful. People on th’ lan’s doin’ pretty well, an’
+they’ll do a lot better yet. There be soome as be a bit frahtent, tho’,
+o’ th’ Labour Party an’ th’ Lan’ Tax, but——”
+
+“But surely _you_ don’t believe in a Land Tax, John?” Robert broke in
+in tones of surprise.
+
+“Ah _do_, then, Robert,” was the answer, “an’ Ah thinks it’s what’ll
+make th’ country all round—anyways, thet’s how it seems to me.”
+
+“For the life of me, John, I can’t see how it’s going to do anything of
+the kind. How can it, when it’s going to tax the farmer right off his
+land?”
+
+Old John laughed.
+
+“Robert,” he said, tapping his friend on the shoulder, “thet’s what th’
+noospapers tells yow, them as will have to pay for theer footin’. But
+don’t yow believe ’n. They only wants th’ farmer to fight theer battles
+for ’n. No, no-h, th’ Lan’ Tax won’t hurt th’ farmer what _farms_,
+it’ll _help_ him. But the one as don’t farm, but sits on the land lahke
+a dug in th’ manger, will have to skedaddle and make room for him as
+wants it; an’ where theer be only one farm now, theer will be three
+or four bahme-by, which will all mean, Robert, thet theer will be a
+lot more produce for yow to sell on commission, an’ a lot more boots
+an’ shoes an’ tea an’ kerosene sold by th’ storekeeper, and a lot more
+drays and waggons and horses used up. Anyway, thet’s what it all seems
+to me, Robert, but if yow can show as it waint be thet way, well, Ah’m
+prepared to listen to yow.”
+
+But Robert held no views other than what he had already briefly
+expressed.
+
+“Well, of course,” he said, slowly, “if they don’t touch the small
+farmer, it will be all right, I suppose. And if, as you say, it will
+mean more produce for me to sell, well, then, John, I’m with it all the
+time,” and he laughed cheerfully.
+
+“Yow be a hopportunist, then, Robert,” and old John laughed on his own
+account.
+
+The conversation turned to family affairs, and, according to Robert,
+two of his daughters were married and living happily with their
+respective husbands on allotments in the suburbs. Another, Mary Ellen,
+was only “engaged,” and was employed in the “fancy” department of one
+of the large establishments.
+
+“But, Will, my eldest boy,” he went on, “I’m not sure what to make of
+him. I’d like him to take to the land if he would; but I wanted to get
+your advice about him first, John, before putting out money in a farm
+for him. You see, I don’t want to find out that he’s not fitted for it,
+or that it’s not fitted for him, when it’s too late. I want to be sure
+beforehand.”
+
+“How old be ’n?” asked old John, with the air of a medico inquiring
+about the constitution of his patient.
+
+“He’s getting on for twenty,” Robert answered, “but to look at him,
+I’m blowed if you would think he was more than fifteen,” and added,
+with a look of pride in his eye, “all our youngsters look a lot younger
+than they are, though. You remember how young and frisky my old father
+looked at seventy-five, and who would ever think that I was getting on
+for fifty?”
+
+“Fefty,” soliloquised old John; “Ah thought yow wer’ a lot more ’n
+thet, Robert.”
+
+“Get away with you,” and Robert worked back to the merits of his son
+Will.
+
+“Is ’n any size?” inquired old John.
+
+“Well, of course you know,” the other answered, “youngsters brought up
+in the town don’t grow like they do in the country.”
+
+“H’m! Ah-h,” reflected old John; “an’ have he a lahkin’ for farmin’?”
+
+“A liking!” and Robert laughed a grim sort of laugh. “Th’ blinded
+young scamp, he hasn’t got a liking for anything except billiards, and
+football, and hanging round street corners at night.”
+
+Old John shook his head gravely.
+
+“Well, my attitude in the matter is this,” said Robert; “I was thinking
+if I could only get him on to the land with someone, someone who would
+work the devil out of him, and, at the same time; take an interest in
+him, you know, that it would make a man of him.”
+
+“H’m!... Ah-h!” mused old John.
+
+Robert stroked his chin thoughtfully and waited.
+
+“Ah-h!” old John murmured again.
+
+Robert saw the futility of beating about the bush, and came right to
+the point.
+
+“Would _you_ take him for a while, John?” he asked. “He’d go to _your_
+place, I believe, and of course I wouldn’t expect a wage for him, or
+anything like that.”
+
+“Well,” answered old John, slowly, “Ah only took one yoongster in thet
+way in mah life, Robert; an’ Ah sed to the wife at th’ tahme thet Ah
+would never take anoother.”
+
+“Just so,” from Robert, disappointedly.
+
+“But,” old John proceeded, “seein’ as it’s to do a good turn by _yow_,
+Robert, Ah might change mah mind.”
+
+“I wouldn’t forget it if you did, John,” Robert said, with a pleased
+look.
+
+“Well, then, Ah would lahke to have a talk along wi’ him,” the other
+suggested, “a talk wi’ himself, yow un’erstand, an’ without ’n knowin’
+as who Ah em.”
+
+Robert entered into the idea with enthusiasm.
+
+“An’ Ah could tell yow then, Robert, if wert wise to spend mooney on
+’n.”
+
+“Well, if you’ll come along and jump on a tram with me, now,” Robert
+suggested eagerly, “we’ll go down to my office, and you can have a chat
+with him there without him knowing who the deuce you are. But, mind
+you, John” (the light of parental pride filling his eyes) “he’s as cute
+as you make them, is Will.”
+
+“Ah-h,” from Old John.
+
+Then they rose and left the hotel together.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+“You know,” Robert said, when they were seated in the tram, “the young
+devil is full of brains if he likes to use them. ‘Look here, Staunton,’
+his schoolmaster said to me one day, ‘don’t you take that boy away from
+me yet; you leave him at school for another couple of years, and I’ll
+make something of him for you. There’s nothing he can’t do if he only
+makes up his mind to it.’”
+
+“Ah-h,” answered old John, with a humorous twinkle in his eye, “then it
+wer’ a pety, Robert, thet yow didn’t leave ’n at school.”
+
+“Well, yes,” Robert mumbled, “it _was_, and I can see it now. No doubt,
+no doubt!”
+
+They alighted from the tram while it was in motion, Robert landed on
+his feet, and old John on top of his head.
+
+“God bless my soul, are you hurt?” Robert exclaimed, rushing to his
+friend and standing him up.
+
+Old John spat out large samples of the city soil, and brushed some more
+from his swell suit, and tried to laugh, and said:
+
+“Well, Ah dedn’t mean to come dahn thet way.”
+
+“You might have been killed,” Robert said, with much concern.
+
+“Well, Ah ain’t, Robert,” and old John laughed again, and pulled on his
+hat, which had left him when he struck the street.
+
+They proceeded along a footpath to Robert’s place of business.
+
+“Well, now,” Robert said on nearing the entrance, “I’ll go in first,
+John, and walk through to my own office, and you follow in a minute or
+two. You’ll see Will at the desk in the auction room, along with young
+Henry, the message boy. You can’t mistake Will, and he won’t know who
+you——”
+
+Old John motioned Robert off in a way that plainly indicated he
+required no instructions.
+
+Robert passed in.
+
+“Was anyone looking for me when I was out, Will?” he called on reaching
+the door of his office.
+
+“Anyone looking for the boss?” Will said, in undertones to the message
+boy.
+
+The message boy shook his head in the negative.
+
+“No one,” Will shouted, confidently, and resumed the useless occupation
+of pasting “questionable” postcards into an album.
+
+Presently old John, with an air of studied indifference, sauntered
+clumsily in and began mooning round the auction room. He paused before
+a rusty-looking oil-painting suspended from the wall with cob-web and
+vermin, and gaped at it. The oil-painting was supposed to represent the
+figure and features of a State Premier.
+
+The message boy drew Will’s attention to the visitor.
+
+[Illustration: IN THE SALE ROOM.]
+
+Will looked up, and for a moment or two eyed the broad back and long
+coat of old John.
+
+“It’s lost its mother,” he said.
+
+The message boy giggled; Will was a constant source of humour to the
+message boy. But for Will the message boy’s existence would have been a
+dull and uninteresting one in the office.
+
+Old John, in admiration of the work of art, grunted: “H’m,” and “Ah-h!”
+
+Will, on hearing the noise, looked up again, and, placing a thumb to
+his nose, worked his fingers at old John.
+
+The message boy ducked his head under the bench and gave way to mirth.
+
+Old John fixed a pair of spectacles on his nose and proceeded to
+examine the picture closely, like a woman judging fancy work at a
+country show.
+
+Will became interested. He reached to the floor, and, lifting a stray
+onion that lay there, pelted it hard at old John’s head. The onion hit
+the State Premier in the stomach and made a hole in him.
+
+Old John jumped round.
+
+“Nit yer bloomin’ larks, now!” Will said seizing the message boy by the
+neck, “an’ garn outer this an’ do yer work. Chuckin’ onions about!”
+
+The message boy snatched up a bunch of letters that required posting
+and fled, leaving a train of giggles behind as he disappeared.
+
+Old John, with a serious expression on his face, approached Will.
+
+“Yow should’nt let ’n do thet,” he said, pointing to the punctured
+Prime Minister. “Thet be a shame!”
+
+“_Let_ him!” Will answered, in a voice of scorn, “I can’t stop him! But
+if I was the boss here I would. I’d spear him without warnin’. But the
+ol’ man, he’s far too easy, mister. ’Tween you and me he ain’t fit to
+be over a hen coop.”
+
+“Be yow a son o’ Mr. Staunton’s?” old John asked, tactfully.
+
+“Well, so far as I know, I am, mister,” Will replied, “but I couldn’t
+swear to it,” and he grinned.
+
+Old John looked shocked.
+
+Will laughed, and added:
+
+“They say it’s a wise bloke that knows his own Pa—ain’t that so mister?”
+
+Old John, half inclined to laugh, half inclined to administer a rebuke,
+was lost for a reply.
+
+But Will neither waited nor looked for one.
+
+“_There’s_ a pair o’ good legs,” he said, shoving one of the postcards
+into old John’s hand.
+
+Old John glanced at the card, then burst into a loud “hoh! hoh!
+hoh—hoh! hoh! hoh-h-h!” and dropped it on the floor.
+
+“You wouldn’t guess in a year o’ Sundays where I got that from,
+mister,” Will said, picking up the card.
+
+Old John, with tears in his eyes, stared curiously at the son of his
+friend Robert.
+
+Will cast a cautious glance at his parent’s door.
+
+“I got that one,” he whispered in confidence, “locked up in the old
+man’s private drawer.”
+
+“Hoh! hoh! hoh! hoh!—hoh-h-h!” and old John swung round and stamped
+hard on the floor.
+
+Hearing the roar of laughter, Robert stealthily opened his door and
+looked out and smiled.
+
+“Will’s amusing Dashwood, as I thought he would,” he murmured proudly
+to himself, and quietly closed the door again.
+
+But the turn the interview had taken was not what old John desired.
+
+“What Ah’ve coome abaht, young man,” he said, approaching Will again,
+“is th’ price o’ maize. How have it been sellin’ wi’ yow people?”
+
+“_Maize?_” said Will, assuming an important business air. “_Dead_, sir;
+a perfect drug. So’s wheat, and potatoes are a bally pest.... Why, are
+you a farmer, mister?”
+
+Old John saw his opportunity.
+
+“Ah-h; Ah em, lad, an’ Ah’m proud on it.”
+
+“You look it,” said Will, “you’re fat enough for one; but I’d have
+taken you for something better than a cocky.”
+
+“There be things a lot wus nor cockyin’, don’t you think?” replied old
+John.
+
+“Doing time would be, I suppose,” said Will, with a chuckle.
+
+Under ordinary circumstances old John might have warmly resented the
+slander. But he overlooked it.
+
+“No, don’t you thenk, lad,” he said, “thet yow would be mooch better
+orf setting behahnd a team o’ horses an’ a plough than cocked oop theer
+on thet stool every day?”
+
+“Who, _me_!” indignantly from Will. “_Dicken!_”
+
+“Ah-h, yow lad.”
+
+Will laughed.
+
+“Why, that’s what the old man is always preaching,” he went on,
+lighting a cigarette and blowing long thin streaks of smoke at old
+John. “The old cove” (glancing again at the door) “has tried lots of
+times to get me to go on the land. He wanted me to go with some old
+coot up Fairfield way—old Dashwood. Do you know him at all, mister?”
+
+Will waited for a reply.
+
+Old John appeared to be in difficulties with himself.
+
+“Ah-h,” he muttered at last, “Ah knows him a leetle.”
+
+“A silly, religious old goat, ain’t he, says grace before pluggin’
+into the pumpkin?” further enquired Will.
+
+Old John’s eyes and mouth opened wide.
+
+“He’s got a couple of jolly fine daughters, though, I believe,” Will
+went on, rummaging himself for a match, “as good-looking as he’s ugly.”
+
+Old John’s features started to work as if he was chewing something
+hard, and his fists closed and opened automatically.
+
+“It’s curious how a lot o’ these ugly old blokes,” Will went on,
+growing philosophical, “have such good-looking daughters.”
+
+Old John made an effort to speak, but couldn’t.
+
+“How do you account for that, mister?”
+
+A volcano seemed to be silently at work somewhere in the interior of
+old John.
+
+“I reckon,” said Will, “if I went to his place it wouldn’t be driving
+teams I’d be at, I’d be driving those tarts around pretty slick. An’
+I’d be huggin’ ’em an’ muggin’ ’em in the dairy. Oh, laws!” (Will
+placed his hand over his heart and sighed.) “_What_ a time I’d have,
+mister!”
+
+Old John staggered back, and made a choking sound in his throat.
+
+“I wouldn’t be there long,” laughed Will, “before old Johnny Dashwood
+would be wanting to know what I meant by——”
+
+“_Damn_ yow for a ill-bred city skunk!” old John burst out violently:
+“Do you know who yow be atalkin’ to?” and he leaned over and glared
+ferociously at Will.
+
+Will, suddenly turning pale, deserted the stool and placed his back
+against the wall.
+
+“_Ah’m John Dashwood_, Ah em,” fairly shouted the other.
+
+“Strike me curly, what am I up against!” said Will, and snatching up
+his hat, darted through a side door into the street.
+
+[Illustration: Decorative Image]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+It Was Will.
+
+
+In the heat of temper old John turned on his heel, and abruptly left
+the auction room without reporting his opinion or impressions of Will
+to Robert Staunton.
+
+Robert, in his office, sat waiting the result of the interview. He
+waited till the clock pointed to lunch hour. Then, curious as to the
+cause of the prolonged absence of his friend, he opened the door
+noiselessly, and looked out. There was no sign of John or of the
+“staff.” Robert lifted his voice and called: “_Will!_”
+
+There was no answer.
+
+He called “_Henry!_”
+
+There was no Henry about, either.
+
+“Will’s up to some of his games, I know,” Robert said to himself.
+“Slipped Dashwood home for dinner, I bet. That’s where I’ll find them,”
+and, turning to a basin that sat under a brass tap in a corner of his
+little den, he proceeded to wash his hands.
+
+“About five minutes to catch the tram,” he murmured, glancing at the
+clock, when suddenly the door, as though a heavy horse troubled with
+mange had rubbed against it, burst in and revealed old John, with
+solemn, set countenance, standing like the statue of Captain Cook upon
+the threshold.
+
+Robert experienced a pleasant surprise at the unexpected appearance of
+his country friend.
+
+“Where the deuce have you been all the time?” he said, giving his hands
+a final rub in the towel. “Why, I was just going to run off home to
+hunt you up. I made sure Will had put you up to playing some joke on
+me——”
+
+Then, as he adjusted the towel in its place: “What do you think of
+Will? How did you get on with him, John? Do you think you can make a
+farmer of him?”
+
+“_Robert!_” began old John, in tones of sorrow mingled with anger, “Ah
+dersent want to saay nothink whatsoomever abaht yower son; let thet be
+oonderstud clear atween us, oncet an’ for ever!”
+
+Robert opened his eyes and stared as though he had been hit with
+something.
+
+“Ah dersent thenk,” old John continued, “thet he’s a credit to yow,
+Robert, or thet yow, as his faither, has been a credit overmooch to
+him.”
+
+Robert was a man of quick temper, and there was a lot of conceit and
+false city pride about him.
+
+“_What!_” he said, staring at old John as though he couldn’t believe
+what he had heard.
+
+“Just what Ah sez, an’ nothink more, an’ nothink less,” replied the
+other, with firmness.
+
+Robert was satisfied he had heard correctly.
+
+“To _h—l_ with you,” he shouted, upsetting his office stool by the
+excited motion he made with his hands, the noise of which made a
+fitting accompaniment to his outburst of temper. “Would you insult me
+and my son—an’—an’—an’ in my own _office_? It’s like your d—— cheek!
+And I won’t stand it, not from _you_ Dashwood, nor from _anyone_! I
+wouldn’t stand it from the King of England! By heavens I wouldn’t;
+and I’m an Englishman, as good an Englishman as was ever _born_!” He
+thumped the table hard with his soft, flabby fist. Then, puffing and
+blustering like a whale, glared at old John.
+
+“Ah insults _no one_!” old John roared back, squaring his shoulders
+and standing his ground. “Do you hear _thet_?” (a dramatic pause). “Ah
+insults _no one_, Robert Staunton! But what Ah thenks Ah means to say,
+and——”
+
+“You _won’t_!” Robert interrupted furiously. “You _won’t_! By heavens
+you won’t; not in _my_ office!”
+
+“Ah _will_” yelled old John, “an’ Ah will say it here, an’——”
+
+“You d— well _won’t_, I say,” howled Robert, shoving his face
+close into John’s. “If you utter one more word you’ll go out of
+here—by—by—by——”
+
+In his fury the right word failed him. “_Dashwood!_” he bellowed in
+a higher key, “don’t you compel me to strike you, or by my soul look
+here!” He seized a chair with both hands and waved it over old John’s
+head. At the same moment Will, who meanwhile had returned to his desk,
+overhearing the noise, stealthily approached the open door of his
+parent’s private office, and stood, a silent spectator of the quarrel.
+
+“Don’t yow do anythink you’ll be sorry for, Robert Staunton!” roared
+old John, without flinching from the uplifted chair.
+
+“Get out of here, then,” roared the other.
+
+“When Ah’m ready!” said old John.
+
+“Well, get ready, set, go!” came suddenly from Will, and with a violent
+pull of old John’s coat-tails he dragged him to the broad of his back
+and made a great noise with him on the floor.
+
+Old John was never more surprised in his life than when he found
+himself on the floor. With the howls of an enraged animal he struggled
+to his feet and pursued Will round the auction room. For a moment or
+two it was all joy to Will. He gloried in the exhilarating sport of
+evading capture, and chuckled as he dodged in and out and round about
+bags and bales and miscellaneous cargo.
+
+“Scotch him, Spider,” He shouted to the message boy, who chanced to
+return to his post just in time to share in the excitement. “Scotch
+him!”
+
+[Illustration: A BREACH OF FRIENDSHIP.]
+
+The message boy seemed to understand well enough what Will required
+of him, but, like a growing pup that experiences for the first time
+a desire to take part in the frolics of older dogs, he hesitated and
+frisked nervously about in the one spot whenever old John shuffled past
+him. Once he made a half-hearted attempt to seize hold of old John, but
+courage seemed to fail him.
+
+“Scotch him, darn it, Spider!” Will cried again, then slipped on a
+banana peel, and sprawled on the floor.
+
+“Yow yoong dug!” cried old John, “Ah’ve got yer now!” and with open
+hands bent down to scoop him up.
+
+“Yer fritent scowser, Spider!” Will yelled. “Scotch him!”
+
+The messenger danced about like a chained monkey for a second or two,
+then finally rushed forward and shoved old John hard in the rear while
+he was in the act of stooping. Instead of securing his assailant old
+John fell head first over him, and made more noise than the dropping
+of several hundredweights of iron dumb-bells upon the boards. Will was
+relieved; and, struggling to his feet, he hopped away on one leg, and
+disappeared. The message boy had dived out in advance of him.
+
+Old John rose and glared all about, then brushed himself with his
+hands. He groaned several times, then approached Robert’s office door
+again.
+
+“What Ah coomed here to say te yow, Robert Staunton, wer’ this,” he
+said, doggedly. “If you dersent keep a taht rein on thet there son o’
+yow’n, he’ll get ’n into trouble one o’ these days! Gud day!”
+
+Then, turning away, he went into the street, and made for his hotel.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Will, delighted with the turn things had taken, frisked into his
+father’s office to glean further information about the quarrel.
+
+“Did you ever in your life hear such infernal impudence?” puffed the
+parent, his passion not one bit abated, “for a d— pumpkin man like that
+to come here and insult me in my own office!”
+
+“I’m blest if I could make out what the deuce had gone wrong when I
+heard yer both slingin’ off,” said Will, cheerfully, and added: “He
+wanted to deal it out to you, did he, dad?”
+
+“He wouldn’t deal much to me, I’ll warrant!” and the burly produce man
+walked savagely round his dingy little den.
+
+“I made sure yer was goin’ to spread him out with th’ furniture,” Will
+ventured, with a grin.
+
+But other thoughts began to occupy the mind of the parent.
+
+“What did _you_ say to him?” he demanded, turning suddenly upon Will,
+and fixing him with angry eyes. “Did you say anything to offend
+Dashwood?”
+
+“_Me?_” and Will struck a surprised attitude. “Offend Mister Dashwood?
+Why, I didn’t know he _was_ Mister Dashwood!”
+
+“That’s not answering the question I asked you! Did you say anything,
+or do anything to him at all?” and the parent lifted his voice in a way
+that made Will start.
+
+“Oh, I spoke to him, of course, when he spoke to me,” Will answered
+slyly.
+
+“What th’ devil was it you said to him, then?” demanded the parent.
+
+“What was it I said to him?” Will repeated, sparring for time.
+
+“Yes!” and the parent clenched his fists.
+
+“Oh, he just asked me how produce was going, and——”
+
+“And what?”
+
+“Well, he said something er—about—er——”
+
+“About what?” loudly from the parent.
+
+“Er—about _farming_.”
+
+“What about farming?”
+
+“Well, I think” (hesitating) “that he asked me if I’d care to go on a
+farm!”
+
+Robert felt he was on the right track for a solution of the trouble,
+and yelled at the top of his voice:
+
+“And what th’ devil did you say in answer to that; out with it!”
+
+“Oh, I said it would be just the glassy marble—the sort of thing
+I’d like to be at, that is, as near as I can remember.” Will was a
+brilliant liar.
+
+Robert was baffled. He felt convinced of his son’s innocence, and old
+John’s attitude was surrounded with deeper mystery than before.
+
+“An’ that was all he said to you?” he asked, in a calm mood.
+
+“He went away then,” said Will, committing more perjury, “and I never
+saw him any more till I see you going to wooden him with the furniture.”
+
+“Curious!” reflected the parent, “d— curious!” and, seating himself in
+his chair, sat thinking the matter over.
+
+Will lost no time getting out of the office. It was too warm an
+atmosphere for Will’s frame of mind just then.
+
+“The boss is in a devil of a pelt,” he informed the message boy, whom
+he encountered on his way in with a letter that had arrived for the
+“firm.” “Be careful what y’ say, Spider, if he asks anything, or he’ll
+sack y’ sure as yer livin’!”
+
+If there was one thing in this world that the message boy dreaded
+more than another it was the thoughts of losing his five shillings a
+week. And, whenever the bare possibility of such a disaster was even
+suggested to Henry, painful visions of the distraction and penury
+his mother would be reduced to in consequence rose up before him and
+disturbed his peace of mind.
+
+“Who’s that from?” his employer growled, as the boy nervously placed
+the letter before him on the table.
+
+He ventured no reply, but commenced a hasty retreat.
+
+“Henry, come here!” and Robert called him back.
+
+Henry’s heart went cold, and he returned, looking pale as death, and
+trembling like a captured hare.
+
+“H’m!” mumbled Robert, as he finished reading the letter. Then, putting
+the document aside and turning to the boy:
+
+“Oh, I wanted to ask you, Henry, if by any chance you happened to say
+anything to Mr. Dashwood when he was in this morning that annoyed him,
+though I don’t think you did, did you?”
+
+Henry went to pieces.
+
+“It wasn’t me, sir!” he blubbered, “it—it was _Will_!” then he opened
+his mouth and bawled as though he were being tortured with hot coals
+and molten lead.
+
+Robert sprang from his chair.
+
+“It was Will, was it?” he repeated.
+
+“Y-y-yes!” howled Henry.
+
+“Now, don’t be afraid, I’m not going to say anything to you, Henry;
+just be quiet and tell me what you know about it.”
+
+“He—he” (sob) “he” (another sob) “he—he” (several sobs) “threw—threw”
+(some more sobs) “a onion at—at—him.”
+
+“_Who?_ At Mr. Dashwood? _Will_ did?” Robert gasped. “By heavens!”
+
+“Y-y-yes, s’!” moaned Henry.
+
+“_That’s_ it, is it! Th’ d— young liar!” The outraged parent bit his
+lip. “I see it all now! Th’ confounded young blackguard!”
+
+Then addressing Henry again:
+
+“Just tell Will to come here; I want to see him.”
+
+But Will, who had been listening at the door, made off, and, on
+reaching the street, turned and shook his fist threateningly at the
+message boy.
+
+[Illustration: Decorative Image]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+The Family Visit the Theatre.
+
+
+In the evening the family met together round the hotel tea-table. Peter
+and Tilly supplied the greater part of the conversation. All the fresh
+incidents and impressions they had to relate would alone have filled a
+book of fair dimensions. Old John himself was silent, and seemed in a
+melancholy mood. Mrs. Dashwood shared his reflective spirits, and sat
+as one over whom a cloud of gloom was resting heavily. At intervals,
+when appealed to to settle some point of difference, old John would
+grunt “h’m” or “hoh!”
+
+“Any letter from William to-day?” James, who harboured a suspicion that
+something had gone wrong away back at the farm, enquired of his parent.
+
+“Noh, noh; not to-day, lad, not to-day,” was the reply. And, leaning
+back in his chair old John seemed to become deeply absorbed in the
+senseless chatter, and the bowing and pawing of the bare-necked,
+white-fronted group of superior people who occupied the adjoining
+table. But in reality he neither heard nor saw one of them.
+
+“How did you get on with Mr. Staunton, father; did you see him?” Peter
+asked abruptly.
+
+Mrs. Dashwood, who was already in her husband’s confidence as regards
+the day’s doings, turned her eyes sympathetically upon old John.
+
+Peter repeated the question, and the absent-minded parent came to his
+senses with a start.
+
+“Ah-h! oh! Ah-h yes; I seed him, lad!” he answered, clumsily striving
+to treat the question in his most natural way.
+
+“Father and Mr. Staunton had a good fly round together, I’ll be bound,”
+Tilly ventured, playfully, and added, with a deep sigh: “Oh, I’d just
+love to be a man in a big city!”
+
+Peter drained a glass of ginger-beer, and, setting the glass down,
+chuckled:
+
+“Yes; you’d make such a splendid man, you would, Til. Ha! ha! Remember
+when you put on James’s trousers?”
+
+Tilly scowled at her brother, and then choked back a giggle.
+
+“Sh!” Polly said, nudging Peter, “don’t let people hear you, you silly!”
+
+“Well, she might make a good enough man,” Maria growled, “for she ain’t
+such a great success at what she is, or someone would be wanting her
+before this.”
+
+“Well I won’t be afraid to refuse the first one that _does_ come along
+lest I should never get another, Maria!” Tilly fired back, with blood
+in her cheeks.
+
+Just here a waiter, plying for custom, broke in on them.
+
+“No more for me,” old John said, and the rest of the family nodded
+their heads in the negative. The waiter bowed like a willow stick, and
+fluttered off on his rounds.
+
+“Are we going to th’ play to-night, father?” Peter asked, folding his
+serviette anyhow.
+
+Old John shook his head dismally and mumbled: “Ah-h dern’t know, lad!”
+and Tilly said she “guessed father would be going out somewhere with
+Mr. Staunton.”
+
+Old John stared pathetically at his daughter.
+
+“I think father has seen all he will ever want to see of Mr. Staunton,”
+Mrs. Dashwood remarked, meaningly.
+
+The family began to “smell a rat,” and looked hard and wonderingly at
+their downcast parent.
+
+“Ah! H’m!” murmured old John, and rising, once more led the way from
+the noisy, busy dining-room.
+
+They all ascended in the lift together, and, arriving at No. 2
+floor, collected in a circle at one end of the luxuriantly furnished
+sitting-room. Then by degrees, and in disjointed fragments, full
+particulars of the episode in which Will Staunton played such an
+interesting part were passed from one to the other, and feelingly
+discussed.
+
+“And do you mean to say the old scoundrel was going to hit you with a
+chair, father?” James asked, with an angry frown on his face.
+
+“Well, Ah thenk he would ’a’ done, lad!” old John answered quietly.
+
+“And fancy that Willie Staunton pulling father down on the floor!”
+Tilly flared. “I could wring his neck!”
+
+Polly summed the Staunton family up as “a bad lot,” and reckoned they
+weren’t worth talking about.
+
+“Did you say as someone wer’ _shot_, my dear?” Granny enquired of
+Polly. But no one was in the humour to go into details in the interests
+of Granny.
+
+“By Xmas! I wish I’d been there!” Peter broke out, with fight in his
+eye. “I’d have settled mister Bill Staunton.”
+
+“It mighn’t be too late yet,” James remarked, with a quiet,
+no-confidence smile at his brother.
+
+“By Xmas I would!” Peter said louder.
+
+“It would be just as effective to-morrow,” James drawled advisedly.
+
+“No mistake I would!” Peter repeated.
+
+“We might come across him before we leave town,” James suggested
+knavishly.
+
+“Who th’ deuce is Bill Staunton, I’d like to know!” Peter stormed,
+unmindful of James.
+
+James winked at Tilly.
+
+“Well, Peter,” Tilly said, “really, you just look as if you _would_ hit
+somebody.”
+
+“Oh, well,” Maria growled, as she danced the baby up and down, “I’m
+glad it’s happened for my part; we won’t have to be bothered calling
+on them now, and they never did like to see anyone come with a baby to
+their place, anyway!”
+
+A porter, with his hair beautifully arranged for the evening, and a
+silver tray in his hand, entered the sitting-room and stared about from
+guest to guest.
+
+“Mr. Dashwood?” he said, addressing a sour, grizzled-featured,
+bald-headed old swell who sat by himself, scowling on all around him.
+
+The bald-headed one shook his head. Our friends all turned their faces
+towards the porter. “Ah-h, here,” cried old John, catching his eye.
+And those hotel porters _have_ eyes! The reputation enjoyed by the
+Australian aboriginal for seeing things early is a fraud in comparison
+to the quickness of _their_ vision.
+
+Gliding lightly and gracefully across the crowded room, the porter
+placed a card in old John’s hand.
+
+“The gentleman is waiting to see you down stairs, sir,” he said; “most
+important.”
+
+Old John stared at the card: Mrs. Dashwood stared at it; the whole
+family crowded round and stared at it.
+
+“Mr. Robert Staunton, ah-h,” murmured old John.
+
+The family looked at each other.
+
+“Wants to see you?” said Peter.
+
+“Perhaps Will is with him,” James remarked; looking meaningly at Peter.
+
+“Don’t you go, father; don’t you,” Polly and Tilly advised earnestly,
+and Mrs. Dashwood murmured: “Don’t mind him.”
+
+“What answer, sir?” from the porter, who was becoming restless.
+
+“Well, _noh_!” blustered old John; “Ah won’t see him.”
+
+“Tell him you’re not in, sir?” suggested the porter, from force of
+habit.
+
+“But Ah _em_ in,” cried old John. “Yow tell him Ah dersent want to have
+ennerthin’ more to do with th’ lahkes o’ him.”
+
+The porter smiled. “Yessir,” he said, and glided off again.
+
+“Did yer ever hear th’ lahkes o’ thet!” said old John, tearing the card
+to pieces. “Noh! Ah’m done wi’ Robert Staunton. Ah’m done wi’ him.”
+
+For quite a while the family sat in silence.
+
+“Have you been to the theatre to hear ‘In Australia’ yet, Mr.
+Hall-Smith?” a female voice rang out across the room.
+
+“Bai Jove! Ai reallay am ashamed Ai hev not, Miss Brown,” came the
+answer, “but Ai’m told it’s awfullay delightful.”
+
+“Terribly funnay,” from a second female. “We were there the naight His
+Excellency attended, and we literally screamed the whole taime.”
+
+Our friends from the country looked enquiringly into each other’s faces.
+
+“That’s where we should go to-night,” Peter said, and Polly and Tilly
+quickly approved of his suggestion.
+
+Mrs. Dashwood looked kindly at old John, and thought it would do him a
+world of good to go out for an hour or two and forget unpleasant things.
+
+Old John brooded on in silence a while longer; then, as though his
+senses had suddenly returned, said with a glow of enthusiasm:
+
+“Ah-h, why not; the whole lot on us. You too, Maria.”
+
+Polly and Tilly cast an anxious glance towards Maria, with a hope
+in their wildly-beating hearts that their married sister, with the
+squawking encumbrance, would elect to remain behind and take care of
+the hotel. But to their chagrin Maria was delighted with the idea.
+She hadn’t seen a play “since Joe Miller’s niggers performed in the
+goods-shed at Chatswood,” but they would have to wait until she “put
+another dress on the baby.” She went off and put another dress on the
+baby; also an extra pink ribbon or two on herself. And when all were
+ready Maria was curious to know if the baby would understand anything
+of the play. Polly nudged Tilly, and Tilly nudged Polly; then they all
+hurried down the stairs, dragging each other after them.
+
+[Illustration: AT THE THEATRE.]
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The Company’s manager, the courteous “Goody,” smiled a droll sort of
+smile as he turned to watch the last of old John’s numerous party trail
+in at the door of the theatre.
+
+They were late. The play was in full swing when they entered, and
+the trouble they had to discover seats for themselves exasperated a
+section of the audience. City people take their “theatres” as they take
+themselves, seriously. They called upon the late comers to “sit down”
+before they could see where to sit, or what to sit on.
+
+“Don’t yow be in a hurry,” old John called back to them. “We got plenty
+to sit on, but where to put it be th’ trouble.” This caused a laugh,
+which brought a number of people at distant parts of the house to their
+feet. They seemed to think the play had shifted venue and that they
+were missing some of it. Others then followed their stupid example till
+the whole audience, except those near by, were staring in the direction
+of our country friends.
+
+“Why didn’t yer bring th’ plough with yer?” enquired a thin voice from
+a dark corner of the pit, and a burst of merriment rang out in that
+quarter. Finally, however, our friends all sank down out of sight. Then
+Granny, thinking she was at home on the farm, started to make more
+trouble. At the top of her wheezy voice she desired to know if Mrs.
+Dashwood was “quite comfortable,” and if she was “sitting in a draught.”
+
+“Oh, dry up!” came from the seat behind; and Polly and Tilly took
+Granny in hand to silence her. But they were up against a difficult
+proposition.
+
+“Have yow th’ little yun wrapped well up, my dear?” she enquired
+of Maria. Then Maria began a conversation with her on the amiable
+characteristics of the infant.
+
+“Order! Order!” commanded a number of angry people, and one was heard
+to growl: “They’ve come to the wrong shop; it’s at Dunwich they ought
+to be!”
+
+Tilly pinched Granny hard to suppress her, but only provoked her to
+loud remonstrance. She rebelled in a sharp, squeaky voice and addressed
+her grand-daughter in an incoherent sort of way.
+
+“Put them out!” came from away back in the pit, while a voice that
+seemed affected by a bad cold cried; “Sit on their chest!”
+
+“Oh, ain’t it awful!” Tilly murmured to Polly, and old John at last
+shook Granny hard, and warned her to be silent, by holding up his big
+finger and shaking it close to her nose.
+
+Then Granny settled down, and the family fixed its eyes on the play.
+
+A bush scene was before them. An old selector in his shirt sleeves, and
+with large patches on his pants, was wildly haranguing his daughter
+into marrying the fellow for whom she had no love.
+
+“You’re mad—mad as a March hare,” he exclaimed. “Could you compare the
+two men, could you? Is there any comparison between them?”
+
+“No, there is not, father,” the girl answered, looking very love-sick
+and pretty, “Jim is poor, and hard-working and good-looking and honest,
+and—and—he _loves_ me.”
+
+“Well, and what is th’ _hother_?” yelled the boisterous match-making
+parent.
+
+“Oh, well, he’s an Inspector of Police, father, that is all.”
+
+The old selector walked at racing-pace up and down the boards for
+several turns and threw his sledge-hammer fists wildly about before he
+spoke again.
+
+“That is all, eh?” he yelled. “Where’s his big screw, and his
+hinfluence in th’ country, eh? Ain’t he got them?” He walked up and
+down again, and, when he got tired, paused before the girl, and
+bellowed: “Damnation to it! are yer goin’ to have him—yes or _no_?”
+
+“_No_, a thousand times no, father!”
+
+“Then _damn_ yer! yer’ll have to!” and off he went again in a canter.
+
+Just here the person involved, the uniformed Inspector himself, entered
+in a most unexpected sort of way.
+
+“God bless me, Inspector,” said the artful old selector, suddenly
+becoming as cheerful-looking as a bridal party, “it’s you, is it? Why,
+we was just talkin’ about you and sayin’ how long it is since you were
+here,” and he nearly wrung the official’s arms out.
+
+At this period of the performance Peter thought “it up to him” to have
+a laugh. And a man sitting in front of him who received the full blast
+of the mirth in his right ear looked round and said: “Steady, old man!”
+
+“Well, I hope I am not intruding,” spoke the brilliant Inspector, with
+one eye on the girl, “but an important case which I have in hand, in
+this locality brings me here at this late hour.” Here he gazed at the
+audience and sighed: “Ah, what a divine creature! If she will only be
+mine!” Then he faced the old selector’s daughter, and bowed profusely
+to her, and addressed her as “Kate,” and assured her of the pleasure it
+gave him to find her looking so cheerful and well. “Kate” bowed coldly
+and stiffly to him, and plunged a needle into a scrap of calico she
+was supposed to be sewing.
+
+“A case in this district, eh, Inspector?” the old selector said,
+fussing round.
+
+“Yes. Some rascals have been slaughtering Grey’s cattle for him, and
+doing it pretty clumsily, too, I can tell you.”
+
+“Yer don’t tell me,” gasped the old selector.
+
+“Quite true, confound them! We came across the head of one scratched
+out of the ground by the dingoes, and the tail of another in an old
+fire.”
+
+The old selector thought he saw some humour in it, and said:
+
+“Heads you win and tails they lose, eh, Inspector, ha! ha! ha!”
+
+“Well, win or lose, I’m making a house to house investigation and
+asking them all to turn out what hides they’ve got about their places.”
+
+“Well, I’ll very soon show yer mine,” said the old selector, and off he
+bolted. At the door he paused and observed to the audience: “I’ll give
+them plenty of time ter themselves. That’s all he’s after.”
+
+Then, while the audience breathed heavily, the Inspector addressed
+himself affectionately to the daughter.
+
+“I hope she won’t have him!” Tilly murmured excitedly into Polly’s
+ear, and at the same moment something went wrong with Maria’s baby. It
+squealed without giving any warning of its intention, and Maria shook
+it, and “cooed” and crooned to it. “Sit on it!” cried a disagreeable
+individual. “Chuck it out!” another, with no sympathy for children,
+advised. Maria scowled all round like a lioness at bay, and said: “I’d
+like to see any of you try it!” A great number of silly people laughed,
+and Mrs. Dashwood pulled at Maria and told her to take no notice, which
+Maria did forthwith.
+
+“Why this silence, why are you so cold to me, Kate? Have you not one
+little word of love for me? Ah-h!” and the Inspector went through a
+series of tragic antics peculiar to people who love to excess. But
+it was no use. All the response he could extract from the girl was a
+long, far away sigh. The Inspector tugged at his sleeves and displayed
+symptoms of desperation.
+
+“Then you refuse my love?” he yelled in a violent outburst.
+
+Kate answered with a faint bow.
+
+“Ah-h-h! Then you love another?”
+
+“Yes, she loves another!” came unexpectedly from the hero of the play,
+who strolled in and calmly confronted the Inspector. “And what have you
+to say to him?”
+
+The official one was knocked all of a heap for a second or two.
+
+“Oh, Jim!” gasped the girl, clutching at space.
+
+“Scoundrel!” yelled the disappointed Inspector, “who admitted you here?”
+
+Jim drew out and delivered the police his best punch, and knocked him
+longways across the sofa. Then, while the audience cheered and hurrayed
+and laughed, Jim took Kate in his big, hairy arms and hugged her. He
+enjoyed the hugging process so much, and kept to it so long, that the
+prostrate Inspector was given time to regain consciousness and to
+calmly consider what was best for him to do. He considered the best
+thing to do was to draw his revolver. And, notwithstanding that Peter
+called lustily to him to “look out,” Jim neglected to turn his head
+until requested in a triumphant voice by the Inspector to “leave this
+house or die the death of a villain!” When he did turn he found himself
+looking down the barrel of the regulation revolver.
+
+The audience clutched each other for support. Polly and Tilly closed
+their eyes. “Oh, my God!” Maria said, “he’s going to shoot!”
+
+Then the awful suspense was broken by Jim calmly spitting into the
+barrel, and defying the revolver to go off. A loud yell of delight rang
+out, and Jim spat into the barrel again. Then down went the curtain.
+
+“Ah-h, he’s a proper Hostralian, that cove!” old John observed, as he
+wiped the excitement from his brow with a handkerchief.
+
+Then the light was turned full on, and a murmur of voices filled the
+house as the audience began to converse freely with itself.
+
+In the babel of tongues about our friends a female voice was heard to
+say, in a grievous way:
+
+“Fancy bringing a baby in arms to a theatre! How ridiculous!” Maria
+turned her head quickly and located the owner of that voice.
+
+The proprietor of it was a lady with a long, lean neck, and a bare,
+bony chest. She looked through a pair of gold-rimmed glasses that were
+secured to some part of her by a magnificent chain, and she sat up very
+straight and dignified behind a fan that would have made a peacock weep
+with envy.
+
+“If you had one like it,” Maria said, straight at her, “you’d bring it,
+too; but I don’t suppose you ever had one, or ever will,” and concluded
+by making an ugly face.
+
+The lady with the long, bare neck screened her blushing face behind the
+gorgeous fan, and whispered things into the ear of a male companion.
+Tilly and Polly both tugged at Maria, and threatened to leave and
+return to the hotel if she “went on like that any more.” Maria growled
+audibly to herself and hugged the precious infant closer to her bosom.
+
+“Chocolates here! One shilling a box!” cried a youthful vendor of
+sweets, pushing his way between the rows of seats.
+
+[Illustration: MARIA’S BABY.]
+
+“Got a shilling, father?” Peter whispered to his parent.
+
+“Ah-h!” answered old John, pushing his fist into his pocket.
+
+Peter beckoned the youth along, and plunged into the chocolates. Old
+John paid for them with a half sovereign.
+
+“She’s enjoyin’ herself, mister,” the chocolate boy said, with a grin
+at Granny. Old John glanced quickly at the aged one and discovered she
+was fast asleep.
+
+The boy laughed sociably.
+
+“Wake up, moother!” said old John, giving Granny a shake; “it’s going
+to begin agen now!”
+
+Granny declined to wake up.
+
+“Don’t you disturb her, mister,” the boy said advisedly; “she won’t
+miss anythink!”
+
+“Yes; leave her, John,” Mrs. Dashwood urged; “she’ll be all right!”
+
+John left her, and the boy moved off without leaving any change.
+
+Then the curtain rose again, and showed to the world some more of the
+Australian bush. It was a wild, grand sort of scene. A mountain pass
+in all its ruggedness stood within several feet of the audience. Wild
+birds were calling and whistling and laughing among the mountains. A
+police constable and two black-trackers were pitching a camp at the
+mouth of the mountain pass. All their baggage and accoutrements lay
+about. The audience murmured in admiration.
+
+“It’s too bad to let her miss all on it,” old John said, and made
+another attempt to wake Granny. But the effort was futile.
+
+One of the black-trackers stared up into the foliage above his head,
+and said: “Moomoomby.” His brother tracker shook his woolly head,
+and contradicted him: “Baal, moomoomby,” he jabbered. “That pfellow
+petebroo.” Then they argued the point until the constable tossed an
+empty billy-can at their feet and hollered:
+
+“Shut ye’s jabbering jaw and go and fill that at the creek. Hurry
+up, or befure we have the tea ready the Inspector will be here, and
+there’ll be th’ divil to pay.”
+
+“You been fetch it, Charlie,” the first tracker grumbled, shunting the
+job on to his brother. “I been bring it water alonga dinner-time.”
+
+Charlie also demurred.
+
+“Oh, by cripes,” he growled, “I been bring it water last night two
+times twice.”
+
+The audience laughed at the simple humour of its countrymen.
+
+“Go arn wid y’; the two of ye,” thundered the constable. “Y’ pair o’
+lazy divils. All ye’re good fer is stuffin’ ye’re skin, and shleepin’.
+And look here, when I think of ud: Let ye’s keep me awaake to-night the
+way ye’s did larst night wid ye’re snorin’ like pigs, and be my soul
+I’ll put a hot fire-stick up ye’re noshtrils!”
+
+Howls of delight from every part of the house.
+
+“You been do that,” said Charlie; “we couldn’t smell it no more to make
+it a livin’ for our missis, and we get it compersation then from it
+Labour Party.” (Yells of laughter from the “fat” section of the house.)
+
+“Oh, my word, yes,” Norman said, in confirmation, “we get it plenty
+pfellow compersation then all right for not bein’ able to smell it
+track no more,” and both niggers laughed and grimaced like children.
+
+“Shmell a thrack!” snarled the constable, “the only thrack ever I knew
+ye’s to shmell wer’ th’ thrack of a damper, or a lump o’ beef. Go arn
+wid ye’s and fetch the water, or I’ll kick ye’re ribs in!” and he aimed
+a place kick with his number ten at Charlie, which went wide of the
+mark. (More joy for the audience, during which Peter wriggled in a sort
+of fit across the knees of his parent and kicked Granny back into the
+land of the living again for several seconds.) Charlie started off,
+billy in hand, and, hanging over the edge of the stage while Norman
+held him by the two legs, dipped some water out of the creek.
+
+“Now, gather plenty o’ wood fer th’ night!” ordered the constable, “so
+as we won’t be scratchin’ about in th’ dark forrit, and be pickin’ up
+shnakes.”
+
+“By cripes!” gasped Charlie, suddenly becoming reminiscent, “I been
+pick it up two big pfellow snakes one night.”
+
+“Ye’s did, yer black divil! And what did ye’s do?”
+
+“By cripes, I been-jump it nearly into th’ plurry moon,” answered
+Charlie. And the laugh he raised would have emptied a hospital.
+
+“Well, be th’ saints above,” said the constable, “I wish ye’d pick one
+up now!”
+
+Charlie proceeded cautiously to collect wood. As he bent down Norman
+threw a stick, which fell at his feet. Charlie, with snakes on his
+mind, took fright. He bounded into the air like a piece of whalebone,
+then stared about suspiciously. The audience entered into the joke
+with enthusiasm. Satisfied nothing had attacked him Charlie continued
+to scrape up more wood. As he stooped again a snake of tremendous
+dimensions gradually lowered its length from the limbs above till its
+large head, with wide, open mouth, was within a foot of Charlie’s
+woolly head. (The audience started to get excited, while Norman
+fled at sight of the reptile and took refuge behind the constable.)
+Charlie filled his arms with sticks, then straightened up. His head
+bumped into the dangling boa-constrictor. He looked up quickly to see
+what was there. He saw what was there, and dropped his bundle to the
+accompaniment of an unearthly yell. The snake concluded the time was
+ripe to commence operations. It commenced by falling in a number of
+long, heavy coils upon Charlie, and winding itself around him. Talk
+about excitement! A wild, desperate struggle started off, and rolled
+itself several times across the stage. The audience began to kneel on
+each other’s shoulders.
+
+“Don’t y’ think we had better get out of here, father?” Peter cried,
+with fright and frenzy in his rolling eyes. Old John didn’t hear him.
+
+The struggle for life on the one hand, and for a meal on the other,
+continued to roll across the stage. The constable seized a rifle, and,
+pointing it in the direction of the danger, sat prepared to defend
+himself. The snake coils slackened and Charlie slipped out into the
+fresh air. He lay full length on his stomach, exhausted. The snake
+struck a similar attitude. Their heads were near each other’s. They
+glared at each other. Charlie groaned. The snake opened its mouth.
+Charlie gazed far away into the recesses of its lengthy interior. He
+groaned more. (“Oh, we’d all better go; it’s going to swallow him!”
+came apprehensively from Maria). Something seemed to go wrong with the
+reptile internally. It suddenly developed several bulging compartments
+along its stomach. It was all stomach. It opened its mouth wider—still
+wider. It struggled, strained, wriggled and contorted; then a kangaroo
+rat jumped out of him, and raced for dear life across the stage.
+(Yells of surprise from the house.) Then “bang!” went the constable’s
+rifle and the rat fell just as it was in the act of jumping upon the
+orchestra. Such howls and yells and jeers as followed were never heard
+in any play house before. And before the people could calm themselves
+the snake let loose two half-bald old ’possums upon the evening. “Bang!
+bang!” from the constable’s rifle, and both ’possums lay shivering on
+their backs.
+
+“Well, damme!” said John Hop (popping more cartridges into the
+magazine) “if this ain’t th’ besht bit of spoort I’ve had since I jined
+the foorce!”
+
+Then the voice of Charlie was heard to call out in feeble pleading
+tones:
+
+“Oh, why you not been shoot it th’ plurry snake!”
+
+“I wud,” cried the constable, “but how do I know there isn’t a mahn in
+him, and twud be manslaughter!”
+
+But Mrs. Dashwood had reached the limit. She could stand no more of
+that play.
+
+“I’m going!” she said, rising; “I’m going. Some one will be shot, and
+it might be one of us!”
+
+Maria, in the interests of her offspring, agreed with her mother.
+
+“Just as yer like,” old John said, and off they all went.
+
+[Illustration: Decorative Image]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+The Sheriff’s Faithful Man.
+
+
+After breakfast, old John, as he left the hotel alone, stood on the
+large stone steps for a moment or two, gazing in wonder at the volume
+of traffic that seemed to be ever and ever increasing. A well-fed,
+greasy, sleeky individual, accompanied by a lean, pallid person in
+a small straw hat and a large paper collar, and one who would have
+had difficulty in passing for anything other than what he was, an
+attorney’s overworked and underpaid office-hack, hung about the
+pavement, eyeing him closely.
+
+“Are you sure he’s the man?” the well-fed one murmured _sotto voce_, as
+he pulled some papers from his pocket, and examined them.
+
+“Sure? Absolutely,” replied the clerk. “I saw him as he left the boat
+yesterday. But don’t let him bluff you. Our principals say he is as
+cunning as a fox.”
+
+Old John descended slowly, and, as he reached the pavement, the greasy,
+sleeky man, who, of course, was none other than the boss bailiff of the
+State, smiled an oily smile, which was the most valuable part of his
+stock-in-trade, and accosting him, said:
+
+“Oh—er—Mister Brownloe, half a moment, please.”
+
+Old John paused and stared at them both.
+
+“You’ll excuse me, won’t you?” and the bailiff proceeded to grapple
+with a number of documents, which seemed to evade the touch of his fat
+fingers.
+
+“Ah’ll excuse yow,” answered old John, with a broad smile, “but Ah
+ain’t Mister Brownloe.”
+
+The bailiff laughed affably.
+
+“Oh, we understand each other, Mister Brownloe,” he said. “It takes
+an old dog for a hard road, eh, Mister Brownloe?” and he laughed some
+more. “But if you won’t mind stepping round the corner for a moment
+where it will be more private, we——”
+
+“Dang you!” blurted old John indignantly. “What do I want to go round
+the corner with yow fer? Who be yow, eh?”
+
+“Well, really,” and the bailiff laughed pleasantly, “you’re about
+the hardest case I’ve met, Mister Brownloe, and I’ve met some queer
+ones—thousands of them. You know well enough” (producing a sealed
+document) “that I’ve got a warrant of _Ca. Re._ against you! Really I
+don’t know how you can take it so calmly,” and another pleasant ripple
+of official mirth came from him.
+
+“A _w-what_!” cried old John.
+
+“Well, you _are_ a caution,” pursued the hypocritical bum. “I’ll just
+read it to you:
+
+  ‘_To James Ballantyne, my Chief Bailiff, greeting:—By virtue of a
+  writ of Capias ad Respondurdum to me directed, I command you that you
+  take Robert Brox Brownloe if he be found in my bailiwick, and him
+  safely keep until he shall have satisfied the sum of £850, which sum
+  was ordered to be paid by the said Robert Brox Brownloe to William
+  Smith, plaintiff in this suit, together with office fees, legal and
+  incidental expenses, besides interest at the rate of £8 per centum
+  per annum. Hereof fail not. William Thomas, Sheriff._’”
+
+“What have all thet rigermarole got to do wi’ me?” exclaimed old John.
+“Ah ain’t Brownloe, or ennerone else; Ah’m John Dashwood. And look yow
+here, and just listen to me: Ah’ve heerd o’ your sort often enoof, so
+just yow get on abaht your business and doan’t interfere wi’ me else
+Ah’ll call a perleeceman and give the two on yow in charge.”
+
+The bailiff rubbed his hands, and laughed in a most friendly fashion.
+“Well, if you ain’t just the coolest fellow that ever I have come
+across in all my experience, Mr. Brownloe, and I can’t help but admire
+you. It’s a pleasure to meet a man like you. But, really, you know, and
+you mustn’t blame me or my friend Mr. Tomkins, here. I’ll make it as
+pleasant as I can for you, but you must consider yourself my prisoner
+until the sum is paid, together with the office fees.” He repeated
+“office fees” several times, and each time smiled most seductively,
+for that was where he himself came in. Then he placed his hand on old
+John’s shoulder to administer the legal official “touch,” without
+which, according to George the Fourth or someone of ancient descent,
+the “arrest” would not be good business.
+
+Old John side-stepped and, striking a Jack Johnson attitude, used
+threatening language.
+
+“Now really,” and the bailiff laughed once more, “you _are_ a gallant
+old man, Mr. Brownloe, but I wouldn’t fight with you for a good deal,
+no, not me! Many a fellow you’ve knocked over, I know! But we musn’t
+waste too much time, for I’ve got to be back at the court at 11.30, and
+here is a copy of the summons, and a copy of the judge’s order.” He
+calmly offered the documents to old John.
+
+Old John punched a hole in the judge’s order and danced on the summons;
+then invited his interviewers to stand up and be made chopping blocks
+of.
+
+The affable bum deemed it judicious to enter into further particulars.
+
+“Like a good fellow,” he said, in his best smoodging voice, “just
+listen to me, just listen to me for one minute, will you, Mister
+Brownloe?
+
+“I’m the sheriff’s chief officer” (he never encouraged the use of
+the term “bailiff” at all). “This gentleman”—turning to the sweated
+hack—“represents Messrs. Jones and Robertson, Town Agents for the
+Plaintiff’s Solicitor. Now, like the sensible man that I’m sure you
+must be, if you will only think the matter over one minute and just
+come along and see the sheriff it will save a lot of trouble. If you
+refuse, you know, I must only call a policeman, and oh! really, Mr.
+Brownloe, I wouldn’t like to cause a scene here, more for your sake
+than for my own.” And, gathering up the scattered documents, he tried
+old John with them once more.
+
+Old John took them in his hand and savagely tore them into many pieces.
+
+A look of horror filled the eyes of the astonished bum. He saw
+sacrilege and contempt of court written all over the scraps that were
+fluttering innocently away, and making off down the street.
+
+“Oh, you bad old man!” he gasped. “Do you know what you’ve done, Mr.
+Brownloe?”
+
+“Ah knows what John Dashwood’s done,” was the answer, “he’s tore ’em
+up.”
+
+At this stage a stalwart policeman strolled along on the opposite side
+of the street.
+
+[Illustration: DEALING WITH THE JUDGE’S ORDERS.]
+
+The bailiff hailed him by name. The bailiff was intimately
+acquainted with the police of the city; and the police of the city were
+acquainted with the chief bailiff of the State. John Hop, scenting
+trouble, puffed out his chest, and responded to the call.
+
+The bailiff explained the position to his contemporary in the law.
+
+The policeman frowned upon old John, and said in a voice of tremendous
+authority:
+
+“Now, get along wid Mister Ballantyne and pay ye’s debts!”
+
+Old John looked bewildered.
+
+“But, policeman, Ah’ve told him Ah dersen’t owe ennerone mooney. And
+mah name’s John Dashwood. Ah’m a farmer, coome here fer——”
+
+“Go arn! Go arn wid ye’s!” interrupted the policeman, “that’s an old
+yarn! Get awaay to th’ sheriff!”
+
+Old John began to see the matter was genuine and that further
+resistance was useless, and the humorous side of the situation started
+to strike him.
+
+“Well, if this doan’t beat all,” he said, with a broad smile, “an’ Ah
+coomed here to th’ city wi’ mah wife fer a holeeday——”
+
+“An’ ye’ll get it, Oi’m thinkin’,” grinned the bobbie, “though Oi
+wudn’t say ye’ll spend it wid your wife.”
+
+The bailiff smiled pleasantly again, and addressed old John:
+
+“Well, shall we take a cab and drive down, Mr. Brownloe?”
+
+“Takes whatever yow likes, seems to me,” and old John laughed. “Ah
+dersen’t seem to have mooch say in it atween th’ lot on yow.”
+
+“Oh, you won’t be kept long, I’m sure of that,” said the cheerful
+bailiff. “You’ve got a pretty long cheque book. Oh, I’ll bet you have
+Mister Brownloe!” and, clapping old John affectionately on the back,
+added: “Come along; come along!”
+
+Old John went along, and the cabman scarcely pulled rein till he drew
+up at the large front door of the Supreme Court.
+
+It was a busy morning at the court. The criminal sittings were to
+open at ten o’clock. The calendar was a heavy one. It was full of
+charges of murder, burglary, forgery, bigamy, robbery, horsestealing,
+and attempted suicide. Officials of the court—registrars, deputy
+registrars, associates, tipstaffs, chief clerks, first clerks, ordinary
+common barn door clerks, messengers, bailiffs, assistant bailiffs,
+bum-bailiffs and sundry other servants of the Crown were running here
+and there with books and papers in their hands, and an air of great
+importance on their faces. It was one of the red letter days of the
+court, and a great day for the officials. They bounded up the broad
+staircase that led to the temple of justice like kangaroos ascending
+the wall of a range, and bounded down it again. Along the main corridor
+of the building moved a stream of humanity which included all sorts
+and conditions of people—people with money and position, people with
+neither; people with ambition, people without any; people fresh from
+the university, people who had never heard of such an institution;
+people who preached the gospel of Christ, people who picked pockets.
+And mingled with the mob were lawyers laden with bundles of papers
+tied with green tape; pressmen trailing walking sticks after them;
+doctors in gold-rimmed spectacles; inspectors of police in uniform;
+jurymen, lost and helpless looking, enquiring of others where they
+were to go; witnesses making similar enquiries; the downcast father,
+the broken-hearted mother of an unfortunate son on trial; then last
+but by no means least, quite a small army of clean-shaven gentlemen
+wearing long black gowns that flogged their heels, and crowns of
+horse-hair, with idiotic “pumpkin” curls dangling to them, swaggered
+along as though their absurdly-decorated heads contained all the brains
+of the world. In their hands they carried, by way of advertisement,
+imposing-looking volumes of the law. And from out this profane medley
+of humanity old John emerged at the sheriff’s office. The bailiff
+opened a door which had printed upon it in large ornamental letters:
+“Chief Bailiff,” and invited his prisoner to take a chair and make
+himself comfortable and happy. Removing his coat, which he brushed
+carefully, he washed his hands and face and combed his hair and
+whiskers. Then, after considering himself in a shabby little mirror,
+which he extracted from a cedar press, he looked at his watch, a
+Waterbury, secured to his vest by a magnificent brass chain.
+
+Old John sat and stared about the room. It was a cold, dingy-looking
+crib, that deserved to be tenanted by a bailiff. The kalsomined
+walls were as bare as blazes and disfigured with blobs of grease and
+ink-splashes and pencil writings of every hue. A photo. print of the
+Attorney General of the day, cut from the morning newspaper, was pasted
+over the fire-place. It was pasted there in the hope that the original
+of it might look in one day and, seeing it, decide upon giving the
+bailiff a rise of screw for his devotion and loyalty. The bailiff
+learnt this wrinkle from his under-secretary, an imported cuss who, by
+similar servility, achieved the sensational act of scaling the walls of
+the service in a pair of policeman’s boots.
+
+No covering was upon the floor, but the presence of stained borders and
+a number of battered tacks bore testimony that it had been carpeted,
+before the bailiff entered into possession of it. “Higher officials”
+have no respect for the comforts of a bailiff, except when their tailor
+issues a writ against them. And then, but only then, they weep on his
+neck and hold his hand in a brotherly way.
+
+Standing stolidly in the centre of the room was a large pine table,
+on which stood three glass ink-bottles labelled “red,” “black,” and
+“purple” respectively, a grimy old tumbler half filled with dirty shot,
+a wonderful variety of pens and pencils, sufficient to set up a country
+school, and a large quantity of foolscap, some of it torn, some of it
+scribbled on, some envelopes of all lengths and shapes, and blank,
+printed forms galore, some headed in large type: “Jury Summons”; some
+“Warrant on Ca Re”; some “Warrant on Ca Sa”; some “Warrant on Ha Fa”;
+some “Warrant on Fi Fa”; and some more “Instructions to Bailiffs.”
+
+And it was all chucked about in any order, and no order at all.
+
+Before this jumble of stationery the bailiff calmly seated himself in a
+heavy chair, the legs of which scratched channels in the floor when he
+dragged it under him, and proceeded to arrange the papers “Smith _v._
+Brownloe.”
+
+“Well, now, Mr. Brownloe,” he said, turning to our patient friend with
+a winning smile, “before we go in and see the sheriff I’ll just endorse
+the warrant with your answers. You refuse to pay me this £850 because
+you say you are not the defendant mentioned in the warrant. Is that so,
+Mr. Brownloe?”
+
+“Just as Ah told yow afore,” answered old John.
+
+The bailiff nodded, and proceeded to write things on the back of
+the warrant. When he had finished his face assumed a serious,
+saintly expression, a habit he had acquired from long practice as a
+lay-preacher.
+
+“Of course you know, Mr. Brownloe,” he said, rubbing his hands
+together, “and I only mention the matter now in your interests, you
+know, entirely in your own interests, and you’re a man I can’t help
+respecting, really I can’t; in fact I’ve taken quite a fancy to you in
+the short time that we’ve known each other, so I have, and what I would
+impress on you to be really very careful about is that the plaintiff’s
+solicitors, you know, will fight this matter to the bitter end, and
+if it should turn out after all that you really _are_ the defendant
+mentioned, my word, then I wouldn’t like to be in your shoes, Mr.
+Brownloe, oh, not for thousands, not for all the gold in Australia”;
+and the bailiff opened his eyes and shook his head gloomily. Then,
+breaking into a friendly laugh. “Oh, I fancy I can see you in that box
+upstairs with Mr. Bumpkins, the barrister, at you! Besides,” he added,
+“you would have to stump up a lot more then than it will cost you now.
+Even my own costs would be ever so much greater. They don’t come to
+very much just yet. Let me see” (makes a calculation), “yes, only five
+pounds ten, including cab fare. But just think for a moment what the
+solicitors’ costs would come to” (here he leaned back and laughed
+loud). “I don’t suppose anyone in this world, Mr. Brownloe, could say
+what _they_ would come to.”
+
+“Well, all that’s got nothing to do wi’ me!” old John answered,
+shortly; and the bailiff lost hope.
+
+“Well, you _are_ a determined man, Mr. Brownloe,” he said. “I _do_
+admire you for it,” and jumping up he opened a small trap window in the
+thick brick wall and looked out upon a nest of clerks assembled in the
+next room, munching fruit.
+
+“Ha! ha! ha!” he laughed. “Did I give you a fright, Mr. Maypole?”
+
+“I thought you were that rotter of an under-secretary spying round
+again!” a voice was heard to say, which was followed by a burst of
+clerical laughter, and a large banana that whizzed through at the
+bailiffs beard.
+
+The bailiff closed the trap window with a loud bang, and stood
+listening to things rapping the other side of it that sounded like
+hail-stones pelting a roof.
+
+“They’re such awful beggars in there,” he said to old John,
+“for playing jokes. Oh, dear me, I _would_ enjoy myself if the
+under-secretary were to pop in here just now and open this window. He
+_would_ get such a one in the eye!”
+
+“Ah-h,” remarked old John; “who be he?”
+
+“Who _is_ he!” and the bailiff looked as though amazed to find that
+any person living did not know that exalted being, the under-secretary!
+
+“Oh, he’s the head of the department—the head of us all.”
+
+Cautiously he opened the trap window again, and, finding the clerks had
+settled down to work, called out:
+
+“Mr. Maypole, is the sheriff in his office do you know?”
+
+“Yes, I suppose so,” came the answer, “if he’s not gone into court.”
+
+“Well, look here, Mr. Maypole, I’ve Mr. Brownloe with me, and I must
+see the sheriff most urgently.” Then, catching Mr. Maypole’s eye, the
+bailiff winked a wink, the meaning of which was perfectly understood by
+the gentleman, at the head of the clerks’ quarters.
+
+The bailiff seated himself at his table again and commenced writing at
+a wonderful rate of speed.
+
+Next moment Mr. Maypole, with a pile of papers in his hand that might
+have referred to all the matters in the department for ought he knew
+at the moment, entered the room, and, as an excuse for his appearance,
+asked a fictitious question about the service of a jury summons.
+
+“I’ll tell you all about it in two minutes, Mr. Maypole, if you just
+sit down for a while,” answered the busy bailiff; “I want to catch the
+sheriff first, before he goes into court,” and, rising, he rushed off
+to capture his boss.
+
+And Mr. Maypole, the clerk, was left in charge of the prisoner, which,
+of course, was the object of his entering the room. From behind the
+folds of a closely-written document, which he pretended to study very
+hard, he started to stare curiously at old John. Old John took little
+or no notice of Mr. Maypole. Old John was lost in meditation. Mr.
+Maypole went red in the face. He smiled a little; then, taking his eyes
+off the prisoner, he rose quickly and referred to defendant’s name in
+the official documents lying on the bailiff’s table.
+
+Looking up at old John, he asked, with a broad smile:
+
+“Your name is not Brownloe, is it?”
+
+“Well,” old John answered slowly, “Ah can’t get this gentleman yere to
+believe as it ain’t, and that’s why Ah’m yere.”
+
+“You’re Mr. Dashwood, ain’t you, from Fairfield?” this with a broad
+grin of proud recognition.
+
+Old John gave a start, and stared at Mr. Maypole.
+
+“Do you know me, then?” he cried, the light of joy rushing to his eye.
+
+“Oh, yes, I ought to know you,” with a continuation of the grin of
+recognition, “I’m Jim Maypole, Mr. Dashwood.”
+
+Old John gave a bigger start.
+
+“Why bless my ’eart, where wer’ me eyes! Yower father’s place be just
+next to mine. Hoh! hoh! lord yes, why yower th’ one as we used to call
+little Jimmy, an yow went to school wi’ my James!” And old John nearly
+shook the clerk’s arm out of joint.
+
+“I was over at your place last Christmas,” said he, “when on a holiday.”
+
+“Oh, don’t Ah remember,” gushed old John, “but you’ve growed lad;
+you’ve growed.”
+
+“And what the deuce are you doing here on this matter?” asked Mr.
+Maypole; pointing to the official documents.
+
+All old John’s good humour had returned to him.
+
+“Hoh! hoh! hoh!” he laughed, “this man yere” (meaning the bailiff) “and
+a policeman, and another fellow as left us dahn th’ street, and a cab
+wi’ two grey horses in it fetched me here, Jimmy.”
+
+“Jimmy” laughed.
+
+“Ah-h,” went on old John, “and the missus and Granmoother and all of
+’em don’t know where I are.”
+
+“What! are they all down with you?” cried the clerk.
+
+“All on ’em were inside the poob when Ah were collared ahtside!”
+
+The clerk saw the humour of the situation and broke into mirth.
+
+“Ah-h,” continued old John, “and them wer’ sure my name was Brownloe
+or summit, and ’em only asks me to pay eight oondered for th’ tahtle,
+Jimmy.”
+
+Jimmy had to hold his sides. And old John rocked about in the chair.
+
+Their enjoyment was interrupted by the hurried entrance of the excited
+bailiff.
+
+“I’m awfully sorry, Mr. Brownloe,” he gasped, “I really must apologise,
+but the sheriff has gone into court and——”
+
+“Well, _you_ are a chump, Ballantyne!” the clerk said, wiping the tears
+from his eyes, “this is not _Brownloe_, this is Mr. Dashwood from
+Fairfield, an old friend of my father’s, and I’ve known him since I was
+a kiddy.”
+
+“Ah knowed Jimmy yere,” old John laughed, “since he wer’ in napkins!”
+
+The bailiff went white, and sunk backward against the closed door.
+
+“Our nearest neighbour for years,” added the clerk. “How on earth did
+you come to make such a bloomer?”
+
+“Oh, I can’t be blamed! I can’t! I can’t! It’s not my mistake. Oh, that
+awful fool of a clerk that Jones and Robertson sent to point him out!”
+and the bailiff showed symptoms of becoming seriously ill.
+
+Mr. Maypole stood and grinned.
+
+“Oh, dear, this is awful!” whined the bailiff. “Oh, _do_ ring up Jones
+and Robertson like a good fellow and ask one of the firm to come up at
+once! I’m too unnerved to do anything myself. Oh, there will be trouble
+over this! Oh, let me have a drink of water!”
+
+“That last case of wrongful arrest,” remarked the clerk maliciously,
+“cost the office what, about nine hundred pounds, and two men their
+billets.”
+
+“Oh, _do_ ring up the solicitors!” cried the miserable bailiff, while
+his knees rattled together like the hangman’s when on duty.
+
+The clerk rang up Jones and Robertson, and, after answering several
+questions, and chuckling cheerfully into the machine, turned and said:
+
+“Mr. Jones is coming himself, and is bringing along a gentleman who
+knows the defendant Brownloe well.”
+
+The bailiff attempted to make a grateful response, but lost control of
+his bottom jaw. “R-r-r-r-r-r R-r-r-r-r!” went his teeth, as though set
+in motion by intense cold.
+
+Old John, taking compassion upon him, assured the bailiff that so far
+as he “wer’ concerned no harm wer’ done.”
+
+The bailiff pulled himself together, and paced restlessly about the
+room.
+
+Suddenly a messenger, out of breath, burst into the room, and gasped
+out that William James, a juror, had failed to answer when his name was
+called, and that the judge was in a terrible rage, and the sheriff in
+a blue funk. “You’re to come up to court at once Mr. Ballantyne,” he
+concluded, in a shout, and rushed away again.
+
+The poor bailiff! He collapsed again. “Oh, my heavens!” he moaned, “oh,
+my stars!” and placed his hands to his head.
+
+But just then the clatter of shoe leather was heard racing up the
+corridor and the form of the absent juror streaked past the open door.
+
+“There he is!” shrieked the bailiff, “there’s Mr. James!” and he
+bounded out in pursuit. Next moment he was hanging round the juryman’s
+neck beseeching him in the name of heaven, in the name of himself, in
+the name of the judge, to hurry into court.
+
+“Oh, to th’ devil with th’ judge! My watch just makes it five minutes
+past ten!” growled Mr. James, and on he trotted.
+
+“Oh, what a blessing he’s come!” sighed the bailiff, returning to his
+table and mopping the perspiration from his brow. “I needn’t go up now!
+Oh, there will be a row when he goes in!”
+
+And there _was_ a row! In less than three minutes juror James came
+rushing back to the bailiff’s room.
+
+“Where’s your telephone?” he roared, angrily. “That infernal old dog up
+there has fined me ten pounds! But I’ll show him if I’ll pay or not!”
+
+He turned the handle of the machine with great violence.
+
+“Give me the Attorney General!” he shouted “Confound it, are you deaf!
+The _Attorney General_! No, d— it! I don’t want your under-secretary. I
+want to speak to Mr. McBrown himself! Eh? Mr. James of James and Black
+speaking!”
+
+The clerk looked across at the bailiff; the bailiff looked across at
+the clerk.
+
+“Is that Mr. McBrown?” continued juror James. “Oh, how are you, Dan.
+Look here, Dan, I’m in trouble. I was five minutes late on the jury
+just now—and the common jury, no less—and this old barbarian that you
+keep on the bench here fined me ten pounds!”
+
+There was a silence, during which the conversation was conducted by
+“Dan,” the Attorney General.
+
+Then juror James began again:
+
+“Oh, right you are, Dan,” he said, “I’ll come round and see you right
+away!” and, dropping the ’phone he winked triumphantly at the bailiff
+and hurried away.
+
+“That’s strong, if you like!” remarked the clerk.
+
+The bailiff chuckled.
+
+“Catch Mr. James paying a fine,” he said; “not while he’s one of Mr.
+McBrown’s chief political supporters!”
+
+“And they say the course of justice is never interfered with in
+Australia!” remarked the clerk again.
+
+“Oh, _never_!” said the bailiff, with a broad smile; “never! never!
+_never_!”
+
+And the incident had hardly closed when Mr. Jones, of Jones and
+Robertson, accompanied by the gentleman acquainted with defendant
+Brownloe, arrived.
+
+One glance at old John satisfied the said gentleman. He turned to the
+lawyer and shook his head in the negative. The lawyer flew off the
+handle.
+
+“Have you arrested this gentleman as the defendant?” he asked, in
+scornful tones of the bailiff.
+
+The bailiff fairly trembled.
+
+“Your clerk pointed him out, Mr. Jones, and I couldn’t——”
+
+“I don’t know anything about what our clerk did!” interrupted the
+lawyer, “but I presume the sheriff’s office knows its business, and if
+it is pleased to arrest the first man it meets in the street, while the
+real defendant is allowed to escape by its neglect, then of course it
+must put up with the consequences. We want that writ against Brownloe
+executed, Mr. Ballantyne,” and the lawyer, with his companion, turned
+and left.
+
+A cold shiver came over the bailiff and he sunk in a limp heap into his
+chair.
+
+“Well, Ah suppose they don’t want me any more, Jimmy?” old John said,
+addressing the clerk.
+
+“No, Mr. Dashwood,” the clerk answered, “not unless you are going to
+issue a writ against the office for wrongful arrest!”
+
+Old John shook his head contemptuously, and held out his hand to say
+good-bye.
+
+“Good-bye, Mr. Dashwood,” the clerk said, “but you ought to go up and
+spend half an hour in the court now that you are here. You might hear
+something amusing up there.”
+
+“Ah-h,” said old John, falling in with the idea, “an’ which way do yow
+go, Jimmy, to get in there?”
+
+“Just round the corner of the passage, here, Mr. Dashwood,” answered
+the clerk, pointing out through the door. “The stairs are there on your
+right; you can’t miss them. Just go up them and you’ll see a crowd of
+people hanging about the door. Go right in; but I don’t think you’ll be
+able to get a seat.”
+
+“Ah, well, Ah don’t soopose they’ll hang me,” answered old John
+cheerfully, and, shaking hands with Jimmy again, added: “Ah’ll tell
+father as how Ah saw yow when we goes back to Fairfield.” And off he
+rocked in search of the court-room.
+
+The mouth of another wide corridor leading to the judges’ private
+chambers was all that caught old John’s eye, and down that dull and
+gloomy corridor he fearlessly stalked. At the bottom of it be found a
+staircase, a narrow staircase, sacred to the use of judges only, and by
+which their Honours always ascended to the bench. For any other court
+official to make use of that staircase was a felony!
+
+Without a moment’s thought or hesitation old John mounted those stairs
+and, with the clumsiness of an elephant, up he climbed, step after
+step, until finally and suddenly he landed on a Brussels carpet and
+stood in full gaze of the crowded court-room and the bar, and within
+a kick of the sheriff and the gorgeously-gowned and heavily-wigged
+judge. Oh, horror! Had the Kelly Gang, armed to the teeth and with
+its hat and armour on, arrived on the bench by those stairs at that
+moment the court and spectators could not have looked more staggered or
+astonished. The hair on the head of every policeman reared up on its
+end, and their mouths opened like caves. The crown prosecutor, in the
+middle of his address to the jury, shut up like a shop, and stared as
+though the ghost of all his past sins had suddenly risen up before him.
+The judge, hearing something grunt behind him as old John negotiated
+the last step, swung half way round in his chair, and, suddenly
+crouching low as one in the act of dodging a revolver shot, held up his
+bejewelled hands as if silently imploring mercy. The sheriff, whose
+duty it was to protect the person of His Honour, even at the sacrifice
+of his own life rose to the occasion. The sheriff had been a military
+man, and was no coward. In fact it was the one opportunity he had often
+longed for through his long, sleepy official career. But before he
+could grapple with the intruder the latter had disappeared down the
+stairs again. The sheriff disappeared in pursuit. Then there was a
+commotion! Every policeman, plain and fancy, every official in court
+rushed out by the front way and threw himself down the broad staircase
+in order to intercept the offender before he could reach the street.
+Arriving at the ground floor they encountered the sheriff in tow with
+the runaway. The former had a pleasant smile on his face, and old John
+was waving his large hands about and making loud efforts to explain
+that he had merely wandered up the stairs to see how the court managed
+its affairs. “Jimmy Maypole,” he said, “told me the way, but Ah moost
+have made a mistake.” Along with a score more excited-looking clerks
+Mr. Maypole came skipping along to witness the fun. He got a surprise
+when he found it was his friend Mr. Dashwood who was the cause of the
+trouble. And the truth of the situation dawned on him at once.
+
+“Why,” he said, pushing his way through the crowd to the side of old
+John, “you must have taken the wrong stairs, Mr. Dashwood!”
+
+[Illustration: IN THE WRONG BOX.]
+
+The sheriff didn’t want any further explanation. “Merely a mistake,” he
+said, smiling pleasantly upon old John and the police. Then he left
+and returned to court to console His Honour.
+
+“Well, Jimmy,” said old John, addressing Mr. Maypole once more. “Ah
+thinks Ah better get out o’ this yere city an’ be off back to th’ farm
+afore Ah gets into more trouble.”
+
+[Illustration: Decorative Image]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+A Leading Barrister.
+
+
+While the rest of his family preferred the pleasures of a Melba
+concert, held in the Town Hall, old John chose to spend the evening
+with an old friend, who, with his family, resided far out in the
+suburbs, and who, like old John himself, possessed an overweaning
+predilection for draught playing. These two old fogies pored over the
+board until such a late hour that old John narrowly escaped missing
+the last tram back to town. And before half the sections had been
+traversed he was the one solitary occupant of the car, and the only
+passenger left to alight at the terminus. Prompted no doubt by the
+glad feeling of having at last finished for “the day,” the conductor
+called out a cheerful “good-night” as our quaint friend crept down
+off the footboard. Old John paused for a moment to study the lay of
+the town, then directed his footsteps for the hotel. The smellsome
+street was dark, and dull, and empty. Not a sound, save the echo of
+his own footsteps ringing out on the hard, hollow pavements, pervaded
+it. The crowds of jostling people had gone; all the theatre-goers had
+long since wended their way to their homes and lodging places; street
+singers, cheap jacks, and beggars had departed; the sin and vice of the
+city that was usually flaunting round in paint and powder and all the
+alluring colours of the rainbow had disappeared as completely as though
+swallowed by an earthquake. A light, drizzling rain was falling, and
+wretchedness and misery seemed to hang like a shroud over the dazzling
+city. A few lights still flickered afar out on the silent, ghostly
+waters of the dark and distant harbour. Mayhaps, in the absence of the
+great shop illuminations, the pallid gas-lamps holding sentry at the
+street corners burned brighter than they were wont to do.
+
+A night-porter unbolted the large front door of the hotel with grating
+noise, and with a series of bows and succulent smiles admitted old John.
+
+“Ah’m late, eh?” he said, apologetically.
+
+The porter smiled some more.
+
+“Not the latest, though, sir,” he answered, in a consoling tone of
+voice. “There’s any amount more to come after you.”
+
+“What, to-naht?” and old John looked surprised.
+
+“Oh, I don’t know about to-night, sir,” with a significant grin, “some
+of them generally turn up about morning.”
+
+He bolted the door again, and old John peregrinated in the direction of
+the elevator. A light was burning in the hotel office. Two gentlemen
+were leaning on the bottom half of the double door that guarded it,
+conversing volubly. One had been to the theatre and still wore his
+dress suit, and a large diamond stud shone in the centre of his
+starched shirt like the morning star. The other wore a long top-coat,
+buttoned all the way down, beneath which a pair of carpet slippers
+protruded. A couple of empty glasses stood before them, resting on the
+door ledge.
+
+The one in the long coat and carpet slippers greeted old John
+boisterously.
+
+“Hello!” he cried, “this is a nice hour for a respectable married man
+to come in!”
+
+Old John, who had made the gentleman’s acquaintance during the course
+of numerous quiet chats in the smoking-room, laughed, and said:
+
+“Ah-h, but that be th’ pot calling th’ kettle black. Why ain’t _yow_ in
+bed?”
+
+“Well, I was,” answered the other in extenuation, and throwing open
+his top-coat displayed a suit of gaudy pyjamas, “but my friend, here,
+dragged me out to come down and have a drink with him. Let me introduce
+you” (turning to his friend). “Mr. Dashwood, one of our wealthiest
+and most successful farmers. Mr. Portland, Mr. Dashwood; one of our
+country’s brightest barristers. In fact, I might say the brightest
+counsel in the Commonwealth. I suppose you’ve heard of him.”
+
+Old John had heard of barrister Portland, and proceeded to make a
+great mouthful of the circumstance. He was overjoyed at making the
+acquaintance of such a noted person.
+
+“Oh! Ah-h! Mah word!” he exclaimed, seizing hold of the great counsel’s
+extended hand, “Ah wer’ on th’ jury once, when yow were defenden th’
+presoners.”
+
+Barrister Portland’s eye began to sparkle with the glow of professional
+pride.
+
+“Indeed,” he said; “when was that, Mr. Dashwood?”
+
+Old John gave him the day and date, and the name of the presiding
+judge, and those of the prisoners, with a few remarks thrown in on the
+personal inconvenience he himself underwent during a busy harvest time
+to attend the assizes.
+
+Mr. Portland remembered the sittings, and all its attendant
+circumstances and triumphs perfectly.
+
+[Illustration: ONE IN THE MORNING.]
+
+“Oh, by Jove, yes,” he observed, turning with enthusiasm to his
+long-coated companion. “I defended six prisoners that day, Murphy,
+five of them as d— scoundrels as ever looked a judge in the eye. The
+other was a harmless poor devil of a nigger, who seemed to regard his
+trial for murder as a sort of bora ceremony. In fact, I had an idea
+all the time that he thought we were marrying him to a nice little
+gin, and that I was there simply acting as best man, and old Judge
+Browser tying the knot.” (Here Murphy laughed heartily.) “Well the
+five d— scoundrels, I might tell you, that I reckoned on having a
+devil of a fight for, I got off without turning a hair. ‘Not guilty,’
+said the jury” (here Mr. Portland laughed himself). “But to my utter
+astonishment your friend here” (smiling at old John) “and his brother
+jurymen put the rope round the poor unfortunate nigger’s neck without
+leaving the box.” Then, addressing old John: “I could never understand
+that verdict, Mr. Dashwood!”
+
+“Ah, well, yow see,” answered old John, “we let five on ’em go, an’ it
+would a looked bad to let ’em all off!”
+
+“Ah! and so you hanged the nigger for preference!” said Mr. Portland.
+“Well, that’s candid, and it shows that there are occasions in
+Australia when a nigger is chosen for a job before a white man.” Then
+turning to the night-porter, who stood behind the office door listening
+to the conversation with a broad smile on his clean-shaven, flinty
+face: “Fill those up again. What are you going to drink, Mr. Dashwood?”
+
+Old John hesitated.
+
+“Well,” he drawled, “Ah dersent drink but very little as a rule.”
+
+“Well, you are going to break the rule this time,” insistently from the
+great barrister. “You see, Mr. Dashwood,” he added, “I don’t know when
+I might have you on one of my juries again.”
+
+“Ah, well, a little port wine,” said old John to the porter.
+
+The three glasses being filled, they drank to each other’s health,
+wealth and continued prosperity. Then the leading counsel of the
+Commonwealth, who had accounted for numerous drinks during the
+evening, talked with increased volubility, and grew reminiscent of
+his Bar experiences. With a profundity and fluency that was amazing
+he poured forth anecdote after anecdote, recounted stories of the
+various judges that would have made their Honours blush to hear, and
+related sensational instances of juries being bribed and intimidated.
+He mimicked the mannerisms and styles of speech that characterised his
+less successful brothers at the Bar, till his friend Murphy, the porter
+behind the “door,” and old John were forced to hold their sides in
+order to prevent internal dislocations.
+
+To old John in particular the great barrister’s company was heaven
+upon earth. It was the first time in his long life that he had been
+privileged to share learned society. Besides, the port wine was of
+the best. And taking advantage of a lull, while Mr. Portland lit for
+himself a large superbly-flavoured cigar, he said, with enthusiasm, to
+the porter: “Just fill them yere glasses up again, my boy!”
+
+The porter filled those glasses again; and old John, rummaging his
+pockets, discovered they were empty of silver.
+
+“Oh, it doesn’t matter, sir,” said the porter accommodatingly. “I’ll
+mark them up, and you can pay for them in the morning.” Then, as if to
+emphasise his confidence in old John, he spilled one out for himself,
+which he also marked down to old John.
+
+“Never worry about owing a few drinks here, Mr. Dashwood,” the famous
+barrister remarked off-handedly, “the hotel belongs to a wealthy
+temperance syndicate. A good harvest, Mr. Dashwood.” Down went the
+whisky in a gulp, then, smacking his lips a few times, Mr. Portland
+took a pull at the cigar, and plunged into a story about “a deaf and
+dumb fellow, a college chum of his who turned out to be one of the most
+capable and eloquent pleaders at the Bar in Mexico.”
+
+Suddenly and solemnly the great city clock, a mile up the street,
+chimed out the hour as 1.30 o’clock. The great barrister stopped in
+the middle of his story, pricked his ears, and quoted a weird lump of
+Latin verse that had particular reference to graves, and the dead, and
+midnight.
+
+As the melancholy echoes of the clock died away several solemn,
+dusty-looking hotel-hands, habitues of the scullery, appeared, shoving
+before them a lengthy four-wheeled trolly, upon which was stacked to an
+alarming height a magnificent pile of boots and shoes—males’, females’
+and children’s—and the soles of which were numbered in chalk.
+
+“Upon my honour, just look here,” exclaimed Mr. Portland, upon
+observing the cargo of shoe leather that had been “put out” by the
+lodgers to be cleaned while they themselves slumbered peaceably in
+their hired beds, “now isn’t that a sight worth sitting up to see—eh?
+Isn’t it?”
+
+“An’ that ain’t all of ’em,” sorrowfully remarked one of the dusty
+boot-blacks, while his two companions stood beside the pile and grinned
+grins of irony.
+
+“You don’t say so!” cried Mr. Portland enthusiastically, “and are you
+fellows going to polish that ship-load before morning?”
+
+“Before mornin’?” grinned one. “It’s that now, sir!”
+
+“Then before you start on your long and early journey round those
+number nines, gentlemen, you had better have a drink.”
+
+The boot-blacks required no second invitation. And they didn’t wait to
+make enquiries as to the respectability of the person who desired them
+to drink with him. Boot-blacks all know the dangers of delays. Their
+feet didn’t hit the floor once before they arrived with a loud bang
+against the office door.
+
+“Brandy, Billy,” they all said in the same breath.
+
+Mr. Portland bowed interrogatively to old John. Old John said he’d
+“have port wine again.”
+
+Mr. Portland himself and his friend Murphy remained true to whisky.
+
+“Best respec’s, sir,” said the boot-blacks, up-ending their glasses.
+
+“Your very best health, gentlemen; and a pleasant morning,” responded
+the noted barrister—“a pleasant morning.”
+
+He emptied his glass and strode over to the heap of shoe leather and
+surveyed it. A huge, ugly male boot of great length caught his legal
+eye. He lifted it, and stared long and studiously at it. “Enough to
+give any man ten years!” he said scornfully, and dropped the boot back
+on the pile.
+
+The boot-blacks grinned.
+
+“That’s Judge Yorrick’s,” one of them said. “He’s here to-night!”
+
+“Heavens!” cried Mr. Portland, lifting the long, ill-shaped boot again,
+“so it is! I should have known it by the utter look of imbecility it
+has about it; by the woeful lack of decision and direction that’s
+stamped all over it; and, above all, I most certainly should have
+recognised its distinguished owner in it by the almost entire absence
+of a sole! Poor old Yorrick! I know you too —— well,” and once more
+Mr. Portland dropped the boot on the pile. Looking further afield his
+eyes rested on a lady’s shoe with “21” chalked on the sole of it. He
+took it in his hand and turned it over and over tenderly. He pressed it
+to his starched bosom and said: “Ah, th’ dear, dainty little thing.”
+(Old John and Murphy laughed.) “Could that innocent, empty little shoe
+but speak!”
+
+The chalked figures on the sole caught his eye, “Ah! and your owner is
+only 21. A tender age! The bloom and bud of life!”
+
+“Twenty-one!” growled one of the boot-blacks. “Yer wouldn’t say so if
+yer see’d her upstairs, sir. A leather-necked ole hen, what’s nearer a
+century. ‘Twenty-one’ is only the number of her room!”
+
+“What!” cried Mr. Portland sharply, “that’s—that’s _my wife’s_, then!”
+
+Then all at once it seemed to come upon him from different directions
+that he had been basely insulted.
+
+A burst of laughter greeted his ears.
+
+“You d— ruffian!” he shouted and flung the shoe at the head of the
+offending boot-black, who promptly ducked and took refuge in the dark
+shades of the elevator encasement. The two remaining boot-blacks
+entered into the humour of the situation. Mr. Portland turned his wrath
+upon them.
+
+[Illustration: “BOOTS O!”]
+
+“Scullery rats!” he cried. “Take that! and _that_!” aiming in quick
+succession at them Judge Yorrick’s large ill-tempered-looking boots.
+The shoe-blacks dodged this way and that. The leading counsel of the
+Commonwealth armed himself with a fresh supply of clog-hoppers, and
+pursued them with vengeance in his eye. The night-porter and Murphy and
+old John pursued Mr. Portland, calling upon him to “take no notice.”
+The affrighted shoe-blacks flew up several flights of the great stairs.
+Mr. Portland pelted them up on to the fourth landing. Here he was
+overtaken by the night-porter, his friend Murphy and old John. They
+beseeched him in the interests of the slumbering lodgers, and in the
+good name and reputation of the hotel, to desist.
+
+Mr. Portland desisted.
+
+“Well, call the scavengers back,” he said, starting to descend the
+stairs, “and we’ll have a doch-an-doris.”
+
+The night-porter called them back. With grins on their faces the
+shoe-blacks returned cautiously to their pile of boots.
+
+“A doch-an-doris, you sweeps,” called out the great barrister to them,
+“and I’ll file a _Nolle Prosequi_ against you, and let you off without
+a stain on your blackened characters.”
+
+The three shoe-blacks came up to the office door again, smiling.
+
+They all drank again.
+
+“Well, we’ve had a very pleasant evening,” Mr. Portland said,
+addressing his friend Murphy, “taking it all in all. And Mr. Dashwood,”
+turning to old John, “I have to thank you for the pleasure of your
+company this evening, and I’m quite alive to the fact that your stay
+with us was prolonged at acute personal inconvenience and sacrifice to
+yourself. Porter,” to the night officer, as he pointed to the lift,
+“lead thou the way to that virtuous bug-roost for the joys of which I
+am paying four guineas a week!”
+
+The porter led the way; and the merry trio ascended in the lift to
+disperse on different floors and seek their respective rooms.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+Next morning, old John, with some silver in his hand and a look of
+repentance on his brow, sought the night-porter.
+
+“What is it Ah owes yow for last naht,” he enquired, in a confidential
+whisper.
+
+With a meaning smile the porter referred to the pages of a pocket book.
+
+“I thought we were going to have some trouble, last night, sir?” he
+began. But old John wasn’t to be drawn. He had no inclination whatever
+to discuss the doings of “last night.”
+
+“How mooch, lad?” he whispered again, glancing restlessly over his
+shoulder to see if Mrs. Dashwood was hovering near.
+
+“Yours come to—let me see—one pound two and sixpence,” and the porter’s
+face never moved a muscle or disclosed the slightest suspicion of his
+feeling in any way the pangs of a guilty conscience.
+
+Old John staggered visibly.
+
+“Eh?” he said, “Ah only put down one lot o’ drinks, weren’t it?” and he
+glanced back over his shoulder again.
+
+“I don’t suppose you remember, sir,” said the unblushing flunkey, in
+low, guarded tones that insinuated scandal and disgrace, “y’ know you
+were shouting right and left for all hands. Oh, you were _terrible_ bad
+last night, sir, terrible bad!”
+
+Here old John observed Mrs. Dashwood making towards him from the
+breakfast room.
+
+“One pahnd two an’ sex,” he murmured, dropping the coin into the
+porter’s hand.
+
+“Right, sir, thank you, sir,” said that gentle, obliging rascal, and,
+with a heavy sinking feeling at his heart, old John turned away.
+
+[Illustration: Decorative Image]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+Meeting McClure.
+
+
+Monday.
+
+“_Ding-dong. Ding-dong. Ding-dong. Ding-dong. Ding-g-g-g._” And the
+great town-clock, towering in solitary state above the noisy, dirty
+city, proclaimed it one o’clock. One o’clock! The hour when the great
+army of poorly-paid clerks, clerks with little lungs, little vitality,
+and less prospects, clerks with wives and large families dependent
+upon them, put down their pens with weary sigh, and, turning to the
+modest sandwich bulked in the packet with a banana, begin their mid-day
+meal; the hour when ministers of the crown, heads of departments,
+proprietors, directors and managers of business houses, bank managers,
+promoters of gold mines, coal mines and delusive oil mines, and the
+horde of affluent purse-proud members of city society swagger forth
+with air of rare importance into the main thoroughfares to advertise
+their persons and prosperity and to dine largely and expensively at the
+clubs, the grand hotels, and the swell tea-rooms. One o’clock! the
+hour when doors of smellsome factories open to emit teams of men and
+women, boys and girls, into the open for a mouthful of fresh air, some
+to collect in circles about the doors, munching their bit of lunch,
+some to hang round the nearest street corner, others to play quoits
+or gamble for pence on some vacant allotment or down a dark lane; the
+hour when followers of the turf or football and cricket congregate
+before the sporting rendezvous to smoke cigars and cigarettes, and
+to criticise all that happened, or that should have happened, on the
+Saturday before; the hour, too, when the labour agitator, seizing time
+by the forelock, takes the stump in park and square to straighten out
+the political question of the day and arrange things with the working
+man for the effective belting of “boodle” with the heavy end of the
+ballot box.
+
+And, standing beneath that great clock, old John and Peter stared up
+at its giddy height and wondered by what means it was ever elevated to
+such a position. And while they debated the matter with each other a
+burly, hairy form in a new roomy tweed suit and a new hat waddled from
+the crowd and greeted them in cheery, familiar voice.
+
+“Mah gracious me if ’n ain’t Duncan McClure!” cried old John, holding
+out his hand, while Peter started to laugh with delight at the welcome
+and unexpected appearance of their good-natured country cousin.
+
+“By criky!” said Duncan, his humorous little eyes twinkling merrily
+from behind the rolls of fat that gathered in his hairy cheeks, “I was
+standin’ ower there a’maist cryin’ harrd, while I was listenin’ tae a
+chap singin’ ‘Th’ Bonnie Hills o’ Scotland’ when I keeked ower here
+an’ saw ye. ‘By cripes!’ I said, ‘if that’s no auld John Dashwood an’
+Peter, I’ll eat ma bloomin’ bonnet.’”
+
+“Ah-h,” laughed old John, “you’ve good eyes, Duncan; an’ yow won’t have
+to eat yow’re hat.”
+
+“By gosh, an’ I’m jolly glad aboot it, for Ah jist bocht it oot o’ a
+shop the noo, and it cost me five an’ saxpence,” and, taking his hat
+off, McClure invited his friends to pass their friendly opinion upon
+the merits of his purchase.
+
+They both gazed on the felt and at McClure’s bare head and smiled.
+
+“Dae ye no think it’s dirt cheap at five an saxpence?” asked McClure
+proudly. “It’s sic a lang time sin’ I bocht onything mysel wi’oot th’
+wife that I had maist forgotten hoo tae make a deal wi’ th’ skaff-raff
+ahind th’ coonter.”
+
+Old John dragged his own “nail-can” off, and answered:
+
+“Well, Ah paid fourteen shillins for yon.”
+
+“Holy Smoke!” and McClure pulled a long and serious face. “Ye maun be
+gaun balmy.”
+
+“It’s a good het, though,” John said, in justification of the
+expenditure.
+
+“Weel, it’s a different sorrt tae mine,” Duncan drawled, “that ane o’
+yours is th’ sorrt Tam o’ Todshaw an’ auld George Reid an’ some o’ th’
+blackfellows that gets hats gi’en tae them for naething wears. I dinna
+care for that style mysel’ a bit. They look well eneuch on you, though,
+Dashwood; a lot better than on George Reid.”
+
+Peter removed _his_ head-gear and remarked that he only paid “eight
+bob” for it.
+
+“I wadna be seen deid wi’ a hat like that, Peter,” Duncan said. “By
+cripes, I dinna ken where ye got ane like it.”
+
+Peter laughed, and all three replaced their hats on their heads, quite
+oblivious of the fact that a number of people standing by were smiling
+hard at them.
+
+“I didn’t know yow were dahn here, McClure,” old John remarked, opening
+up fresh conversation.
+
+“Tae tell th’ truth,” Duncan answered, “I didna mean tae come doon till
+I kent ye were here yoursel’, Dashwood. ‘I’ll swear be ma soul,’ I said
+tae the wife, ’auld Johnny Dashwood’s hae’n a deil o’ a gude time o’
+it,’ an’ she said: ‘Well, can ye nae gang doon yoursel’?’ ‘By cripes,
+now,’ I thocht, ‘I just will,’ and I had nae sooner thocht it than a
+chap frae th’ railway came along an’ telt us a’ aboot th’ cheap fares——”
+
+Here a sudden gust of wind lifted McClure’s hat from his head and
+propelled it into the centre of the street, amongst the traffic. Peter
+pursued it on Duncan’s behalf. Before he could rescue it, however, a
+cabman’s horse put his foot in it, and cut gashes in the crown of it.
+Peter, smiling, returned with it in his hand.
+
+“By cripes, now!” Duncan said, staring at the ruin, “isn’t that a holy
+terror. It’s eneuch tae make a bloomin’ pairson swear.”
+
+Old John went off into laughter: “Hoh! hoh! hoh! hoh! hoh!” he roared,
+while he rocked and rolled about on the pavement.
+
+“Bust ye!” Duncan said, and, punching the damaged felt into some sort
+of shape with his fat fist, pulled it over his head again, leaving a
+tuft of his hair sticking up through it like the comb on a cock’s head.
+
+Old John and Peter laughed more.
+
+“Yow can’t wear yon now, McClure,” old John said, advisedly, “yow moost
+get anoother.”
+
+“I’ll need tae get a bit o’ a snack first,” answered Duncan, plunging
+both hands into his roomy pockets and looking quite happy as he stared
+about him. Then after a silence:
+
+“Hae you fellows had a feed yet?”
+
+Neither old John or Peter had had lunch, but both were hungry.
+
+[Illustration: MCCLURE’S HAT.]
+
+“There’s a rrattlin’ gude place just roon this corner,” McClure
+suggested. “A blackfellow keeps it—weel he’s na exac’ly a blackfellow,
+either, he’s mair o’ a yaller fellow, but he keeps gude stuff, an’ he
+gi’es ye a grreat lump o’ steak what’s a’ fu’ o’ juice. By crikey! an’
+when ye takes a mouthfu’ o’ it ye hae tae eat like a rracehorse tae
+keep it frae a’ rinnin’ oot down yer cheeks,” and, waddling off through
+the thronging people, McClure conducted John and Peter to his favoured
+restaurant.
+
+When they had comfortably seated themselves at a small table, and given
+their orders to a robust-looking waiter, Duncan, staring before him,
+observed dryly:
+
+“By Christmas, that’s a braw necktie ye hae on, Dashwood. I can see it
+quite plain i’ that lookin’-glass ower there!”
+
+Peter, starting to giggle, began adjusting his tie in the mirror.
+
+“Oh, yours isn’t nearly sae gran’, Peter,” Duncan added, noticing the
+action of the other.
+
+But old John offered no remark. He neither excused nor denied the
+gaiety of his neck adornments. He merely groaned, and glared about to
+see if there were any signs of the lunch arriving.
+
+Duncan, catching Peter’s eye in the mirror, winked and remarked further:
+
+“It reminds me o’ a grreat joke I used tae hae wi’ auld Sam Snather
+and Paddy O’Regan th’ first year that I started selectin’ at Craig-lea.
+I’ them days we a’ had tae borrow quite a lot o’ things frae each
+ither, an’ these twa auld beggars that I’m gaun tae tell ye aboot were
+as harrd as th’ deil hissel to borrow a thing frae. De ye recollec’ any
+o’ them, Dashwood?”
+
+Old John said he remembered them well.
+
+“But Peter wadna,” Duncan continued, “he was anely a wean then crawlin’
+aboot pu’in’ th’ cat’s tail. Weel, when it became rreal necessary tae
+beg th’ lane o’ onything frae auld O’Regan I used tae pu’ roon’ ma neck
+a wallopin’ grreat green muffler, an’ bring th’ end o’ it richt back
+roon’d me waist an’ ride ower wi’ it showin’ like a rainbow. An’ auld
+O’Regan he’d be sae awfu’ pleased that he’d gie me anything he had
+aboot th’ farm. In fac’ I believe he’d hae gi’en me his auld saw o’ a
+wife tae take away on ma shouther for th’ askin’.”
+
+“I didn’t know he had a wife,” old John remarked.
+
+“By cripes, then,” said McClure, “if it wasna his ane it was some ither
+yin’s. There was ane there. But wi’ auld Sam Snather,” he went on, “it
+was dufferent. Sam, he was one o’ them wild, blatherin’ Orangemen,
+an’ when Ah wantit tae borrow onything frae Sam I was a’ways maist
+carefu’ tae pit on a grreat yaller muffler. An’ soon’s I came beside
+th’ hoose wi’ mae heid concealed frae view ahint th’ peach trees, I’d
+start whusslin’ ‘Th’ Battle o’ th’ Boyne’ michty harrd. By crikey, auld
+Sam wad be awfu’ pleased. He’d bring me intae th’ hoose tae show me a
+pictur’ o’ th’ grreat battle whaur William fought an’ bled——”
+
+Here the waiter turned up with the “juicy” steak, and all three eagerly
+settled down to business.
+
+“Dinna yae think it’s gude beef, Dashwood?” Duncan enquired, eating
+noisily.
+
+Old John agreed that it was.
+
+“D’ ye like it, Peter?” and Duncan looked to see how Dashwood junior
+was faring.
+
+Peter’s mouth was too full to reply at the moment, but his eyes and
+bulging cheeks conveyed all the answer that Duncan required.
+
+For quite a long interval no conversation was carried on, but as the
+steak disappeared from his plate Duncan found his tongue again.
+
+“Auld Dill Mackay’s a grreat Orangeman,” he said “Hae ye ever heard him
+preach, Dashwood?”
+
+Old John said he hadn’t.
+
+“Naither hae Ah,” said Duncan, “but Ah hae seen a pictur’ o’ his legs
+i’ th’ _Bulletin_. D’ ever ye rread th’ _Bulletin_, Dashwood?”
+
+Old John shook his head.
+
+“I suppose you rread th’ _Maissenger_. Ah rread that, too, sometimes,
+but there’s a deil o’ a lot o’ religion in it. Th’ _Bulletin_ is
+deefferent tae th’ _Maissenger_. It’s a maist irreverent bloomin’
+paper, an’ I dinna see what’s tae preevent them as write it frae a’
+gaun tae hell thegither; but this pictur’ Ah’m tellin’ ye aboot wi’
+auld Dill’s twa legs wi’ his trews rolled abune th’ knee, would make
+th’ deil himsel’ laugh, by cripes it would. An’ by crikey, he’s got
+sic’ grreat legs, too. Oor auld pairson hasna got legs near like
+them. We keep him too beggarin’ puir tae let them get as fat as Dill
+Mackay’s. Cripes, he maun eat an awfu’ lot tae get legs like what he
+has. Mine are pretty big anes——”
+
+Duncan was interrupted by the waiter enquiring if he’d take
+plum-pudding or rice pudding.
+
+“Weel,” he said, “Ah’m no a beggarin’ Chinaman. I’ll hae a lump o’
+ye’re plum-puddin’.”
+
+Peter said he’d have some rice pudding.
+
+“By cripes!” Duncan said, staring solemnly at Peter, “ye’ll hae tae eat
+it wi’ twa lang sticks!”
+
+Peter’s eye started to dance with painful apprehension, and he gasped:
+
+“Eh?”
+
+“Ye will that, Peter!” and the solemnity of Duncan’s face increased the
+other’s feelings of apprehension.
+
+“Oh, here; heigh! heigh!” Peter called to the departing waiter, “I’ll
+have plum-pudding, too!”
+
+Duncan laughed inwardly at the simplicity of Peter.
+
+“I don’t want any of their sticks,” Peter growled in a determined sort
+of way.
+
+“It’s a gude job ye had me wi’ ye, Peter,” Duncan said, slyly, “or ye
+wad hae had them, though!”
+
+Peter agreed that it was.
+
+Luncheon over the three were ready to leave.
+
+“That adds a big lump tae th’ expense o’ my trip doon here, Dashwood,”
+Duncan said, with a sorrowful look on his face as he regarded his
+damaged hat reflectively.
+
+“But hadn’t yow better make haste an’ buy anoother yun,” replied old
+John, “yow might as well go bare head as wear that!”
+
+Duncan thought hard for a while.
+
+“Ah’ll telt ye what Ah’ll dae, Dashwood,” he said, with a roguish look
+in his eye, “Ah’ll toss ye tae see whither ye pey for th’ three dinners
+or buy me a new hat,” and he took out a silver coin and began spinning
+it in the air.
+
+Old John was in sporting humour. “Spin yow th’ coin, then,” he said.
+
+“Wha’ ever wins takes th’ choice,” Duncan explained, as he twirled the
+coin.
+
+“Heads!” cried old John excitedly.
+
+“Gosh, no! it’s a bloomin’ tail!” shouted Duncan, securing the coin
+again. “Ye’ve tae buy me a new hat, Dashwood.”
+
+Peter laughed and jeered at his parent for having lost.
+
+Old John accepted the verdict in silence.
+
+Duncan paid three shillings in settlement of the bill of fare, and off
+they trooped into the street again.
+
+“By crikey!” Duncan said, as they approached a draper’s shop, “that’s
+the first time I ever won a wager!”
+
+A few steps further on and a shopman in a long-tailed coat greeted them
+as lost brothers.
+
+Old John acted as spokesman.
+
+“This way, sir,” and the shopman led the way past piles of drapery and
+goods of all descriptions to a small counter at the far end of the
+building, where he introduced old John to a pale, youthful counter-hand.
+
+McClure and Peter loitered in the rear, examining the general display.
+
+“Listen here, lad,” old John whispered hoarsely to the pale, youthful
+counter-hand, “Ah only wants a shellin’ hat. I don’t want any other
+kahnd!”
+
+“About what size, sir?”
+
+“The biggest yow can get. It’s to fit mah friend comin’ along there,”
+and he pointed down the floor to the burly McClure.
+
+“We have a line of shilling hats, sir,” said the counter-hand, “but I
+couldn’t recommend them. If——”
+
+“It doesn’t matter what they be lahke so long as they’re only a
+shellin’,” old John interrupted eagerly.
+
+[Illustration: DUNCAN APPROVES.]
+
+The counter-jumper went away and returned with a pile of flimsy felt
+hats and stacked them on the counter.
+
+Old John beckoned Duncan forward.
+
+Duncan breasted the counter and breathed heavily on the display of
+head-gear.
+
+“Now, dinna ye buy anything that’s rreal dear, Dashwood,” he said, as
+though his conscience was smiting him.
+
+Old John winked at the counter-hand. The counter-hand seemed to sum up
+the situation, and assured Duncan that “they were a very reasonable
+line.”
+
+Duncan selected one from the pile, and, removing his own, fitted it on
+his head.
+
+“By crikey!” he said, “th’ vera first fits me like a glove.”
+
+“And it suits yower complexion,” old John remarked.
+
+“There’s a glass there, sir,” from the counter-hand.
+
+Duncan turned and surveyed himself from head to toe in a large mirror.
+
+“Crikey!” he remarked philosophically, “I never thocht I was sae fat
+as that.” Then, as he straightened the hat and pulled it well over his
+ears. “This one’ll do gran’ if it’s nae costin’ a lot o’ money.”
+
+“I don’t think you’ll find it too dear, sir,” the counter-hand said
+reassuringly.
+
+“Oh, Ah have na got tae pay for it,” Duncan said, with a pleased laugh.
+“I won it i’ a toss.”
+
+Old John winked at Peter. Peter had a vague sort of idea that there
+was a joke lurking somewhere about his parent, but he couldn’t exactly
+locate it.
+
+“Is there anything else, sir?” asked the counter-hand, as he handed old
+John a slip for the amount of his purchase.
+
+“Ye’ll get nae mair oot o’ him th’ day,” Duncan informed the shopman,
+with a chuckle.
+
+The counter-hand smiled and bowed, and his custom departed.
+
+When they reached the street, Duncan said:
+
+“I don’t want tae be too harrd on ye, Dashwood; an’ sae as tae make
+things a little bit even I think th’ three o’ us’ll gang an’ hae a
+drink o’ something.”
+
+Old John consented, and the three of them marched into the nearest
+hotel and drank eighteenpennorth, for which Duncan promptly paid.
+
+“That clears ma conscience a bit anyway,” Duncan said, with a feeling
+of satisfaction, as they reached the street again.
+
+Old John winked at Peter, and Peter felt more mysterious than ever as
+to the whereabouts of the suspected joke.
+
+“Weel, noo,” McClure said, “I’ve got a lot o’ things tae look after
+yet, sae I hae’d better gang awa’. I’ll call roon’ though sometime and
+see ye a’ at yer pub.”
+
+“Well, yow had better take this with yow,” old John said, handing
+Duncan the shopman’s slip for the price of the hat.
+
+“Oh, by crikey, yes,” Duncan said, putting the slip into his vest
+pocket. “It’ll do when I get hame tae show th’ wife hoo I got th’ best
+o’ auld John Dashwood,” and off Duncan wobbled along the street.
+
+“Hoh! hoh! hoh! Hoh! hoh-h-h!” laughed old John as he and Peter went
+off the other way. “Do you know how much Ah paid for the hat, lad?”
+
+Peter hadn’t the slightest idea.
+
+“A _shellin’_!”
+
+“Hah! hah! hah! Hah! hah!” and Peter jumped about and slapped himself
+on the knee and attracted the attention of the police and passers-by.
+“By George it takes you, father! It takes you! I knew you had something
+on!”
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+James and Peter attend Church.
+
+
+Sunday.
+
+Old John, Granny, Mrs. Dashwood and the girls had accepted an
+invitation to tea and to spend the evening in the suburbs. James and
+Peter were alone at the hotel. They moped about all the afternoon, and
+time hung heavily on their hands. After tea they retired to their room
+and moped more. For want of something better to do James turned his
+pockets out and counted his money.
+
+“That’s all I’ve got left of my lot,” he said, producing a half
+sovereign and two sixpenny pieces.
+
+Peter chuckled and said it was more than he had. “I’ve none at all,” he
+added, “unless I can get some more out of father!”
+
+James doubted Peter’s chances of raising any more funds from his
+parent, giving as a reason, that “father was buying a traction engine
+to-morrow!”
+
+“Well, lend us five bob of yours?” Peter said.
+
+James smiled and returned the money to his pocket James had lent Peter
+“five bob” before.
+
+They lay across their beds and stared at the ceiling. After a while
+James said:
+
+“Suppose we go to church somewhere?”
+
+“Anywhere you like,” Peter answered, with a chuckle, and off they went.
+
+Out in the street James paused and said:
+
+“Well, where are we going—to what church?”
+
+“The Scotch church,” Peter answered. Peter had an idea that the Scotch
+church was better than other churches. Peter held curious ideas about
+churches.
+
+“Well, it’s down this street and up the next,” James said, leading the
+way.
+
+“Are you going to walk there?” Peter asked in surprise.
+
+“And back, too,” James answered, “unless you’re going to pay for the
+tram.”
+
+Peter laughed. He also walked.
+
+Presently they were approaching the sacred edifice. They could see the
+lights in every window. The bell was tolling in their ears.
+
+At the large gates guarding the entrance they paused a while and held a
+silent consultation.
+
+“Well, what do you think?” James said. James’s spiritual courage was
+dwindling.
+
+Peter glanced at the imposing-looking building and chuckled. “I dunno,”
+he answered, “perhaps we had better let it rip and come some other
+evening.”
+
+James glanced wonderingly toward the open door, then up at the sky to
+see if there was any signs of rain. But it was a bright night, without
+a cloud in sight.
+
+“Oh, I don’t know,” he drawled doubtfully, “perhaps we had better go in
+now that we’ve come so far.”
+
+The last of the congregation passed in.
+
+James and Peter sauntered closer to the door. They posted themselves,
+one each side it, and took observations. They could see the interior
+of the building ablaze with light. They could see the draped pulpit.
+They could see the great organ. They could see a sea of heads packed
+together, like sheep in a yard.
+
+The last bell rang dolefully.
+
+“Well,” James whispered, “what do y’ think?”
+
+Peter thought the place was full.
+
+James said he could see an empty seat “on the right.”
+
+There was a brief silence.
+
+“Well, you go first,” Peter suggested, “and I’ll follow. Ha! ha!”
+
+“_Sh-h-h!_” from James. Peter’s mirth sounded like sacrilege to James.
+
+Peter craned his neck to locate the empty seat that James had in view.
+
+He drew back and said he “couldn’t see it,” but he “could see a
+Chinaman.”
+
+James shook his fist threateningly at Peter.
+
+“Well, go on,” Peter said, with a grin.
+
+James almost took a step forward, but halted in the middle of it. Peter
+stifled a laugh. James scowled at him.
+
+The organ started to play low and soft. James glanced wistfully back
+at the street, but only moths and night flies, fluttering round a dim
+gas-lamp, were there. Then he glanced interrogatingly at Peter. Peter
+glanced at James.
+
+Suddenly the organ burst into loud thundering peals that startled them.
+
+James couldn’t stand any more. He gripped his hat firmly in his fist
+and took the fatal step. In long, quick strides he set out for that
+empty seat. Peter started after him, taking even larger strides
+and tramping on James’s heels, and attracting the attention of the
+congregation Peter thought James would never arrive at that empty seat.
+It seemed more than a mile away. But James reached it at last and
+dropped with all his weight into it. Peter dropped on James. It was a
+swell seat, too—covered with a luxurious cushion. They both breathed
+hard, and stared silently and strangely about. On a card let into the
+cedar panel before them was the name of the Premier of the State.
+Their eyes rested on the name, then they looked meaningly at each other
+and thought hard. An ugly suspicion that they were trespassing crept
+all over them and made them go cold.
+
+Several moments of heavy suspense passed. Then a venerable churchwarden
+glided down the aisle and hovered over them. His long, grey whiskers
+fell about their necks. They both thought their hour had come. The
+ancient warden whispered things to them through his hands, and pointed
+with his thumb to the rear of the church. But he might as well have
+talked to them on his fingers. They didn’t understand.
+
+At last he gave them up and retired to consult with a brother official.
+
+A broad man with a red face and a double chin and a heavy gold chain
+linked across his stomach, carrying a kid glove and a walking stick
+in his hand, closely followed by a tall lady, covered with finery and
+perfume, paused at the seat James and Peter had “jumped,” and glared
+at them. It was a trying moment for James and Peter. They “shoved up,”
+and crouched together till they resembled compressed fodder. The lady
+clutched her skirts in her hand and hesitatingly sat down beside Peter.
+The burly Premier, glaring at the occupants of his “reserved” seat, sat
+with a series of grunts.
+
+The lady opened a large fan and talked behind the battlements of it to
+her Premier husband.
+
+James and Peter heard her say: “Outrageous!” and “all sorts of people!”
+and it made them feel faint.
+
+A moment later the parson appeared, and the service commenced. It
+commenced with a hymn. The congregation stood to it. So did James and
+Peter—stood like fools, for they were unprovided with “hymnaries.”
+Not that this made any difference to the singing. But in the absence
+of “Sankey” they felt that the eyes of the congregation were all
+upon them. Suddenly the gloved hand of a lady in the seat behind
+thrust an open book under their nose. Her thoughtfulness went near to
+ending their lives. That all the eyes of the congregation _were_ upon
+them now they had no doubt. Peter wished James had been seized with
+appendicitis before he started to induce him to go to that church.
+James mechanically reached for the book, and holding it upside down,
+nudged Peter to join with him in song. Peter responded in a series of
+hysterical laughs, which were drowned by the voices around him. All
+the same that hymn-book helped them on a long way. It made them feel a
+little at home, and more like the rest of the congregation.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+The parson rose and preached his sermon. It must have been a good
+sermon. No one disagreed with it. There was not a solitary dissenting
+voice. When he concluded his “third part” and sat down, a mild
+commotion set in away at the rear of the church. Several church
+officials left their places and moved about the aisles. The organ
+played again. James and Peter wondered what was going to happen. A coin
+dropped on the floor and rolled round on a solemn excursion of its own.
+Some more started to jingle in a plate; then they fell thicker and
+thicker. A collection! Peter’s heart gave a jump. He became uneasy.
+The Premier’s wife took out a purse and rattled the contents. Peter
+remembered seeing “escape door” printed up on the walls of the theatre.
+He looked round to see if there was one in the church. There wasn’t.
+By the ring of the silver Peter knew the plate was coming nearer and
+nearer. He began to perspire. James dug his hand down into his trouser
+pockets. Peter glanced pleadingly at him.
+
+“I’ve two sixpences,” James whispered, and pressed his hand against
+Peter’s. Peter clutched at the proffered coin and nearly took a joint
+of one of James’s fingers with it.
+
+The plate arrived. Peter planked his piece on top of the pile. It gave
+the man behind the plate a surprise. It gave Peter one, too; and it
+nearly took James’s breath away. It was a gold-piece—James’s only _half
+sovereign_.
+
+The Premier and his wife seemed to take a different view of Peter.
+They looked as though they would be pleased to know him. Peter,
+himself, suddenly felt on an equality with them. He sat up straight,
+and his eyes gleamed with the light and consciousness of wealth and
+philanthropy. But James felt different to Peter. A heavy, sinking
+feeling seemed to come over him. His teeth rattled, and he dug his
+finger nails into Peter’s thigh. But Peter only listened to the organ.
+
+[Illustration: THE CHURCH COLLECTION.]
+
+The benediction pronounced, and the congregation rose and started to
+file out. James and Peter were almost last to leave.
+
+At the door the man who took up the collection was waiting with
+beaming countenance. He shook hands with Peter, and enquired if he was
+a stranger. Peter said he was, and told him where he came from. The
+churchman said nothing to James.
+
+He shook hands with Peter again, and hoped to see him become a regular
+attendant at the services. Peter smiled and hurried after James. They
+passed out the gate and walked through the streets for about a mile
+before James spoke.
+
+At last he looked at Peter, and said:
+
+“Of course I only lent you that half sovereign, remember!”
+
+“Hah! hah! hah! Hah! hah! hah-h-h!” came loudly from Peter. And a
+solitary policeman standing on the opposite side of the street stared
+wonderingly across.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+In the Public Domain.
+
+
+Sunday again. The whole family rambling through the great public
+park. Mrs. Dashwood and the girls in heaven amongst the panoply of
+flowers, ferns, artistic nooks, and bowers and shapely shaven lawns.
+They dragged old John here, there, and everywhere, around this bed,
+down that path, and from hill-top to water’s edge. They searched for
+historical spots and monuments, for sights they had heard others talk
+of, and for sights they had never heard of at all.
+
+Peter and James struck out on their own account. Flowers and ferns,
+with a gloomy weather-worn old monument or two thrown in, were not in
+their line. They became interested in the forms and types of humanity
+that were around them. And such forms, such types! Verily, it were
+as though all the freaks and misfortunes of nature had been gathered
+together from all parts of the earth and emptied into that domain. The
+blind, the stunted, the lame, the halt, the limbless, the lungless, the
+hopeless, the homeless, all were in evidence there. On every hand, at
+every turn, they were crouched beneath the spreading trees, unnoticed
+by the hordes of leisure seekers, as unregarded by the world in general
+as though they had never lived.
+
+Aged and decrepid pensioners hobbled feebly about on sticks; careless
+nurse-girls, with other peoples’ infants hanging anyhow in their arms,
+loitered around; girlish wives, with boyish husbands at their sides,
+pushed the precious first-born along in its new gorgeous perambulator;
+crowds of merry children, let loose for the day, romped riotously
+over everything. From improvised platforms stump-orators shouted
+themselves hoarse for the benefit of jeering, cheering crowds that
+out of curiosity assembled to hear their mouthsport. Cricket pitches,
+tennis courts, and bowling greens were in full play. And as interested
+spectators of the latter James and Peter, in the course of an hour or
+so, found themselves seated at the butt of a large shade tree.
+
+The rinks were sprinkled with tottering old grey-beards and
+grandfathers, big-bingied, stiff-backed old fogies who did nothing all
+the week but smoke cigars and pose as “leading citizens.” There were a
+hundred or more of him in short sleeves and flannels, and a faithful
+portrait of any one of him would have been a valuable asset in the days
+of the humorous valentine.
+
+What the game was all about or what constituted the skill of it or
+what didn’t, James and Peter hadn’t the remotest idea, but they saw
+great fun in it, and sometimes laughed till they nearly hurt themselves.
+
+“Look, look at the old cove in the middle, with the braces; watch
+_him_!” Peter cried, tugging hysterically at James.
+
+James fixed his gaze on that “old cove” and followed his movements
+closely.
+
+The “old cove,” with one withered hand supporting the bowl, the other
+pressed against his left hip, bent down, carefully and cautiously,
+till he was almost sitting or lying on the lawn. A blatant, breathless
+sort of individual of the larrikin class, standing in the vicinity of
+James and Peter, groaned a loud, satirical groan, in the interests of
+the feeble bowler, that added to the enjoyment of our two friends.
+They turned their attention to the larrikin. Delighted to find he was
+affording amusement to some one he lifted his voice a note or two
+higher and called: “Now, then, _Spofforth_!”
+
+The hoary bowler bent some more, and, satisfied that his feet had a
+grip of the earth, and that his sight was correct, slowly extended the
+bowl to arm’s length.
+
+“Now, then! ah-h!” bellowed the larrikin, and James and Peter broke
+into fresh merriment.
+
+[Illustration: “NOW, THEN SPOFFORTH!”]
+
+But the warrior didn’t deliver the bowl just then; he drew his hand
+back again until the bowl touched his side, then once more he pushed
+it to arm’s length, and for several moments repeated these movements
+until he seemed to be imitating a man with a saw. Finally the bowl slid
+from his palm and started off on a peaceful rolling excursion down the
+rink. As it travelled the old cove’s arms went out each side of him,
+his chin went forward, his eyes started to jump out of his head. The
+bowl started to deviate to the right. The aged sportsman resorted to
+will-power to guide it. He hung over his left side and strained all his
+shrunken sinews to haul that bowl to leeward. Instead of responding
+the bowl started to show symptoms of spent energy before it had
+travelled half way down the rink. It got down to snail pace and began
+to flounder. The old cove worked his head and hands up and down like a
+pump and “hooshed” it. The bowl wobbled, then made one more revolution
+and stubbornly lay down on the green and sulked. The old cove spun
+stiffly round on one leg and, in a hollow, broken voice, shouted:
+
+“Ech! damn it a’!”
+
+“Hoh! hoh! hoh! Poor old Daddy Christmas!” cried the larrikin,
+sympathetically, and, swinging round, walked abruptly away. James and
+Peter, having had their fill of excitement, followed his example.
+
+“Well, I dunno!” James murmured, coming to a standstill, after they had
+explored the great park from end to end, “but it beats me where they
+can have got to!”
+
+Peter, with tears in his eyes, gazed about like one abandoned to the
+heartlessness of the cruel world, and whined: “I’d know them if I saw
+them, though, by Maria’s red dress!”
+
+They moved on, and strolled round the base of a drowsy old monument
+that never got tired of standing in the one place on the brow of a
+hill. Numbers of people of all kinds were lounging round, reading
+newspapers and feasting on fruit in the vicinity of that monument.
+James and Peter scanned the faces of them all, but no! there was no
+father, no mother, no Polly, no Tilly amongst them!
+
+They were in the act of abandoning the search and returning to the
+hotel when Peter’s eyes suddenly lit up like the morning star, and he
+uttered a short, happy laugh.
+
+“There they are! Ha! ha!” he said, pointing to a red dress, amongst a
+number of others, on a long rustic seat, and off he scampered. James
+followed him slowly. James always took his joy calmly, and suppressed
+all symptoms of excitement. Besides, James wasn’t so confident about
+the discovery as Peter. But Peter’s assurance increased as the distance
+between himself and the objects of his sudden happiness was reduced.
+Once he glanced round to see if James was following, then raced on
+again.
+
+[Illustration: “GUESS WHO!”]
+
+The female in the red dress sat with her back to Peter, so did her
+companions. They were talking about the next Government House Ball,
+and the lady in red had just remarked that she “was afraid Sir Thomas
+would be leaving for Japan,” when Peter, stealing up on tip-toe, and
+smiling like a picture, blindfolded her with his hot, clammy hands,
+and held her back hair firmly against his manly bosom. The lady gasped
+and strained and tried to rise, but Peter had a firm grip of her. Her
+friends on either side turned their heads and glanced up curiously
+at Peter. Peter, still smiling, glanced down at them. But instead
+of encountering the eyes of Polly and Tilly he beheld the faces of
+two absolute strangers. Peter nearly dropped dead. He staggered back
+several yards. He was still staggering when the outraged one, finding
+her feet, demanded to know why “he dared lay hand on her?”
+
+“Call a policeman, Lady Fitzsmith!” one of her companions, both of whom
+were now facing Peter, excitedly advised.
+
+Peter didn’t wait for any more. He bolted, and didn’t draw breath
+or look round till he reached the iron gates opening on to the busy
+street. There he waited until James came up. James, who had also deemed
+it advisable to run, came up with perspiration and a scowl on his face.
+
+“Well, you are an idiot of a fellow,” he said, “an awful d— idiot!”
+
+Peter sparred for wind, then gasped:
+
+“By—by Jove, I thought she was” (puff) “_Maria_, didn’t you?”
+
+[Illustration: Decorative Image]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+Peter in the Breakers.
+
+
+Since arriving in the metropolis the family had witnessed many scenes
+and sights that had filled them with wonder and surprise, but when
+they stepped from the jangling tram-car to the great sand beach by the
+sea and beheld the mixed mass of humorously-clad humanity plunging and
+flopping in the roaring, rolling breakers, the limit was reached.
+
+“Dear, oh dear! oh dear!” Mrs. Dashwood gasped, “just look at the
+women!”
+
+Polly and Tilly giggled. Old John and James and Peter stared hard, then
+burst into laughter.
+
+So that visitors might study and enjoy the awful sights that rolled
+and stalked about the sand an enterprising management had furnished
+the beach with chairs at a penny a time. Old John took ten pennorth of
+chairs, and secured positions of advantage in the front row. Then the
+eyes of the family began to roam over the scene before them.
+
+And such a scene! Such a display of bare arms, bare necks, bare
+legs! Such a hideous exhibition of ill-shaped humanity! Such clumsy,
+clothes-bag corporations! Such crooked trunks and winding limbs! Such
+a galaxy of fat, flabby women of forty! Such a multitude of thin,
+skinny women of fifteen and fifty! And such odd women, with no chests,
+and legs rolling with fat to the ankles! Verily it was a great sight,
+worthy of a great city. It seemed as though nature were out for the
+day, as though she were holding a grand parade, a parade of all her
+best jokes, her most humorous works of art!
+
+And as the mellow, moaning breakers rolled in on the heels of each
+other, flinging and flashing flakes of froth and foam before them, the
+bathers were tossed sportively about on the crests like so many scraps
+of cork.
+
+Now and again a large female would be lifted off her legs and thrown
+into the arms of some frail, bald-headed old fool, who, in his
+excitement, had forgotten to remove his spectacles when undressing, and
+together they would turn turtle to the great delight of the spectators.
+
+A broad-backed man, with a heavy stomach and bow legs, arrayed in a
+suggestion of blue short pants and a handkerchief, crawled out of the
+water and stood with his back obscuring the view of our friends. There
+was sand in his hair and his ears. The salt water trickling down his
+hairy back dripped off him on to the sand. The Dashwoods looked at
+each other, then blushed and laughed. This man was the mayor of the
+great city, but he might just as well have been one of the council
+cart-horses for all the notice that was taken of him.
+
+Mrs. Dashwood voiced a desire to return to the city; but old John
+opposed the proposition. Old John was beginning to see the fun of
+surf-bathing. So was Peter.
+
+“By Jove, I don’t know,” Peter said enthusiastically, “I wouldn’t mind
+having a dip in it. Will you come in, father?”
+
+“Go on with you, boy!” Mrs. Dashwood interposed, “your father would
+never be so stupid.”
+
+“Well, now, Ah bain’t be sure,” old John put in, with a short laugh.
+“Everyone be agoin’ in, an’ Ah thenks it’s good for yow.”
+
+Tilly took alarm.
+
+“Oh, father’s going in, too!” she said to Polly, with a look of horror.
+
+“He’s _not_!” sceptically from Polly. Polly was sure her parent would
+never do anything that would lower the family pride.
+
+“Well, only for the baby,” Maria said bluntly, “I’d go in myself. I
+don’t see where the harm comes in so long as you have got something on.”
+
+At this Polly and Tilly tittered, and Mrs. Dashwood said: “_Maria!_”
+
+But Maria was prepared to argue the matter.
+
+“Now, what’s wrong about it?” she insisted, turning to her mother.
+
+“There bain’t be nothin’,” old John put in, “an’ Ah’ll go wi’ yow,
+lad,” he added, addressing Peter.
+
+Peter jumped at the suggestion.
+
+“Come on, then, father,” he said, and off they went to join the throng
+of fresh arrivals that were crowding into the paling yards which served
+for dressing-rooms.
+
+They were absent for quite a while.
+
+At intervals Mrs. Dashwood and the girls would glance nervously around
+to see if old John really meant to join the surf-bathers.
+
+Eventually old John and Peter appeared, garbed like a pair of circus
+clowns. Stepping tenderly over the pebbles in their bare feet they
+advanced to the water’s edge. Old John, with his ponderous corporation
+covered with red, his long, hairy arms dangling about, and his long
+feet poking out before him, formed an interesting addition to the many
+humorous surf sights. Peter, in blue pants that were mostly trunk,
+might, at a distance, have passed for a girl.
+
+At sight of them Mrs. Dashwood felt the family virtue had gone for ever.
+
+“I never thought they could be such fools!” she moaned plaintively.
+
+“I don’t think they’re fools!” Maria growled stubbornly. “Do you,
+James?” she asked of her staid brother.
+
+But James didn’t know what to think. He could only stare and chuckle.
+
+“Good gracious me!” Tilly murmured, as she felt cause for fresh alarm,
+“I do hope they won’t come over here, near us.”
+
+“Well, _I_ won’t stay if they do,” and Polly glanced along the crowded
+beach.
+
+Old John and Peter took boldly to the water. They paddled through the
+shallow parts, one behind the other, like King Sandy and his gin out
+ration-hunting. The tail-end of a wave flew up at their heads. It was a
+cold tail-end. They gasped, and laughed and pranced about. They waded
+further, until the water rose above their knees, then anchored awhile.
+And while Peter scooped up fistsful of brine to wet his head as a
+protection again sunstroke, old John gave his whiskers a drenching, and
+adjusted his red garment, which showed an inclination to part company
+with him. Both looked back at their friends on shore and waved.
+
+“Don’t notice them!” Mrs. Dashwood advised.
+
+“Pretend you don’t see them!” Tilly added.
+
+But Maria’s heart was with the surf-bathers. She took out her
+handkerchief and waved back, and waved again, until the front seats
+resembled a flag station. Then, elevating her infant in her arms, she
+called upon it to gaze afar out upon “grandfather.” People sitting near
+her smiled and turned their eyes upon the attractive form of old John.
+
+Old John and Peter ventured some more. The water was now up to their
+waist. A great wave came breaking in, bearing back to shore scores of
+bathers on its bosom. Quite a column of them were shooting straight for
+old John. John saw the breaker coming. He put out his chest and stood
+to it bravely. The breaker struck him, and the head of a flying female
+struck him too. It bunted him in the stomach and knocked him back. Like
+a sunken ship old John went down in three feet of water. At the same
+time, though, his hands went out like grappling-irons. They gripped
+the offending female and dragged her under also. Then for a moment two
+pairs of unevenly balanced legs were seen walloping the surface water
+into foam and fury, just as though two monsters of the deep were there
+engaged in deadly combat. The half-smothered female came to the surface
+first, and, with a gurgle and a splutter and an hysterical squeal,
+floundered off in pursuit of her friends. Then up rose old John like
+a whale, and, discharging quite a cargo of salt water, dragged at his
+whiskers and joyfully roared his appreciation of the rough-and-tumble.
+The spectators joined with him in his merriment. The more they saw of
+old John the more they enjoyed him, and so as no mistakes would be
+made when they were pointing him out to each other they designated him
+“whiskers” and “old red-skin.” Some others who had overheard Maria
+familiarly referred to him as “grandfather.”
+
+At intervals Polly and Tilly would glance round to see what like those
+people were who would make _their_ parent a butt for jokes. In fact,
+they became very uneasy, and as a way out of the predicament Tilly
+suggested they all take a walk along the beach. But receiving no
+encouragement from the others she contented herself through the few
+remaining miserable moments by prodding the sand at her feet with the
+point of her parasol.
+
+Encouraged by the example of experienced bathers around him, Peter
+set his mind upon swimming out to meet the breakers. He swam out. In
+fresh water creeks Peter was a fair swimmer; amongst the breakers,
+of course, he was a fool. Peter swam out further than the boldest of
+them. Then he attracted notice. A chorus of voices called warningly
+to him. He rounded and turned his head for shore again. Then suddenly
+something went wrong. He struggled, and splashed, but made no headway.
+He lost ground. The angry sea was carrying him out, bearing him off
+another victim! Peter yelled. A hundred others yelled. All hit out
+hurriedly for shore till all that could be seen in the surf was Peter’s
+black head bobbing about afar out. The alarm went up and down the
+beach. Everyone rushed to the same spot, and the crowd thickened and
+thickened. The spectators stood upon the chairs.
+
+“It’s _Peter_!” Tilly shrieked.
+
+“Oh, my God!” and Mrs. Dashwood fainted into the arms of James. Then
+lusty cries of “_Marcee! Marcee!_” rang out, and were echoed all
+around. The stalwart, sinewy, scarred form of the hero of a hundred
+rescues, life-line in hand, eyes open wide, nostrils distended, raced
+from the dressing-room and took to the water. The crowd watched
+silently, breathlessly. Out forged Marcee, arm over arm. Nearer and
+nearer he drew to Peter. Still not a murmur from the multitude on the
+beach. The dropping of a pin on the sand would have made a big dint in
+the silence. Then, like a clap of thunder the break came. “_He’s got
+him!_” burst on the air like the belching of twenty thousand guns. For
+just a moment Marcee and Peter seemed to grapple with each other. Then
+the iron-like fist of Marcee was uplifted and Peter received the punch
+of his life on the head.
+
+“It was to stun him so as he wouldn’t hold me!” Marcee explained
+afterwards.
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+[Illustration: IN THE BREAKERS.]
+
+When Peter came to again he was lying in a hotel by the beach, and
+a doctor in bathing costume, and the whole family and a number of
+sympathetic old women, were watching over him.
+
+“Why—what th’ deuce are you all doing, eh? Is it dinner-time? What?”
+and Peter stared strangely about.
+
+Then Mrs. Dashwood fell on his neck and shed tears all over him and
+called him her “darling boy.”
+
+Old John, who had been bellowing like a pen of bull calves, threw his
+arms round the doctor.
+
+“He’ll be all right now,” the latter said, with a smile, and went off
+to the beach again.
+
+[Illustration: Decorative Image]
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+Home Again.
+
+
+A fortnight since the family, weary and dusty, with all the parcels,
+bundles and battered baggage, arrived home at the farm. A fortnight!
+And that holiday still fresh and green and going strong! The trip to
+the city was thought of, talked of, laughed over, morning, noon and
+night. Incidents were recalled, re-enacted and served up at breakfast,
+dinner and tea. Friends who called at the home to welcome the family
+back were treated to the minutest detail of the things that happened.
+They heard it all from Mrs. Dashwood, from Tilly and Polly and from old
+John; heard it from them severally; heard it from them jointly; heard
+it from them backwards; heard it from them frontwards; heard it from
+them endwards and sidewards. It was a great holiday—the greatest of
+all holidays—that holiday of the Dashwoods. It was excelled only, if
+excelled at all, by Noah and his ark and all his animals.
+
+But the trip did the family some visible good. It worked wonders in
+their methods, and gave a universal aspect to their outlook.
+
+And upon none was the influence more marked than upon Peter. Peter
+showed reform in his very walk, in the cut of his hair, in the shape of
+his boots, in the odour and quality of his pocket handkerchiefs, and in
+the wonderful variety of tooth-brushes and razors that now adorned his
+bedroom. But it was the distinct and complete change in his studious
+pursuits that rendered the reformation of Peter complete. Ambition set
+in strong upon him. He hungered for fame. In his heart he secretly
+longed to do something that would put all the great minds of the world
+in the shade.
+
+Peter turned his attention to invention.
+
+Once, for about six months, while it was new, Peter rode a bicycle with
+tremendous enthusiasm, but, tiring of the toy, which cost old John
+fifteen guineas, discarded it in favour of a mule that arrived on the
+farm, and hung the wheels up on the walls of the barn to harbour vermin.
+
+Peter’s attention now reverted to that bicycle. Acting upon an
+inspiration which came to him in the city, he locked himself in the
+barn along with that bicycle and worked hard and mysteriously upon it
+for many weeks. But what service it was that Peter hoped to render
+humanity and the world _per_ medium of said bike no one had any idea.
+Whether he had any himself or not remains to be seen.
+
+“Goodness only knows,” James sniggered, in answer to his sisters one
+day upon the matter, “I don’t think he knows himself. A new sort of
+life buoy, perhaps, to take with him the next time he goes for a swim
+in the breakers!”
+
+The peals of laughter that came from the sisters reached the ears of
+Peter. He threw open the door of the barn and thrusting out his head
+enquired the cause of their mirth.
+
+“Oh, something good, Peter!” from Tilly.
+
+“They’re laughing at this invention of yours,” James said, with a grin.
+
+“By Jove, then,” Peter answered, in a self-satisfied sort of way, “it’s
+all right. It’s finished now, and I’m just going out to give her a
+trial!”
+
+The girls threatened to go off their heads with joy. They ran inside
+for their hats, and loudly proclaimed Peter’s announcement to their
+parents. “The great invention is finished!” they cried. “Come and see
+it working.”
+
+The parents, grinning broadly, came and saw.
+
+Old McMurdy and his wife, passing in a sulky, pulled up at James’s
+invitation and waited near the gate to witness the unveiling of the
+miracle.
+
+They hadn’t long to wait. The barn door opened wide again and Peter,
+with the bicycle rigged in full canvas like a sailing boat, appeared.
+
+His appearance was greeted with loud merriment.
+
+But the mirth didn’t disconcert Peter.
+
+“Wait till you see her going!” he said, with a grin.
+
+James, who had laughed least of any, suddenly evinced an interest
+in the invention. He stepped forward and held its head while Peter
+re-adjusted the setting and rigging.
+
+When a number of small things were attended to Peter mounted, and,
+seating himself somewhere between the lower topsail and the flying
+jib, invited James to give the brig a shove off. James shoved her, and
+Peter, grinning, peddled cautiously to keep her balanced. Suddenly a
+gust of wind came up and, catching in the topmast staysail, the craft
+made a lurch to leave port per the open gate-way.
+
+“Hah! hah! hah! h——” roared old McMurdy from the seat of the sulky, but
+his mirth was short-lived. It was the first time his sulky horse had
+set eyes on a sailing craft, and it reared, then flew round and bolted
+up the road as though suddenly possessed of several devils.
+
+When the brig cleared port and arrived in the middle of the road-way
+it stopped and languished for want of wind. The sails started to flap
+uselessly, and Peter had to pedal hard to keep her afloat.
+
+Fresh merriment and jeers came from the family. But Peter propelled
+assiduously with his feet, and worked his passage for about fifty
+yards. Then a change came over the weather conditions. Up sprang a
+breeze with some life and devil in it. It filled the flapping sails
+till they looked like balloons, and hurried the barque off up the road
+at full speed. Peter’s bosom filled with joy. He felt he had achieved
+a triumph. He was sure he had conquered the world. Raising his legs he
+rested them on the handle-bars as he whirled along. Peter believed in
+taking success calmly and contentedly. Talk about ploughing the deep
+and the main! Peter was ploughing the main stock route.
+
+As she glided and wobbled along, the craft looked a strange quadruped.
+
+Terence Blaises, a Justice of the Peace, who had just turned in at his
+slip-rails, with a cart of empty milk-cans from the factory, observed
+the strange white object floating calmly up over the horizon. Terence
+put up the rails and, leaning both arms on them, waited wonderingly.
+
+“Now, what th’ divil is it at all?” he murmured, as the brig came
+rattling and “swishing” along in the wind. But the banging of milk-cans
+in the rear caused Terence to jump round quickly and shout: “Woa, boy!
+woa!” The horse didn’t “woa” worth considering. It flashed its glaring
+mongrel eye upon the craft, then off, knocking down trees and throwing
+empty milk-cans at the clouds. Terence pursued him till he fell over
+a milk-can, and gave up. He looked back pathetically at the sailing
+craft. The sails dipped and ducked as though saluting Terence in
+passing, but further than that no communication passed between him and
+Peter.
+
+Successfully negotiating a corner in the road without going to pieces,
+Peter set sail for the township. The township was situated in the
+middle of a great plain. It sat, simmering there like a steak on a
+grid-iron. The road to it was level, and as good as could be expected
+from the average Australian Shire Council. There were numerous
+deformities along it, of course, many of which bore evidence of the
+Council’s intention to wipe them out some day. In fact, like the road
+to hell, the township road was paved with good intentions.
+
+A fair wind and a nowing sail drove the barque over the rolling plain
+in gallant style.
+
+A mile or so ahead a hooded gig, drawn by a sleepy rheumatic steed,
+hove in sight. It was the township lawyer making for his branch
+office, the local store at the next railway station, where, amongst
+the rock-salt and empty crockery cases, as per advertisement in the
+_Settler_, he journeyed bi-weekly to consult with farmers and dairymen
+having grievances, and to lead them into trials and tribulation for
+a modest fee. A few moments more and the distance between the brig
+and the gig was reduced to chains. Then the sleepy, rheumatic steed,
+suddenly waking up, stopped dead and stared like a brumby for the
+first time looking at a wind-mill. The craft came on like a great
+white eagle. The township lawyer, to satisfy himself it was not a
+hallucination, popped on his gold-rim glasses and eyed the advancing
+brig closely. He gave a short chuckle. He raised a hand and was about
+to hail the captain to enquire the name of the vessel when that
+rheumatic steed gave one decisive snort, and, swinging round, flew
+like the wind for the township. The lawyer’s hat came off and flew out
+the back way; then his glasses followed. The barque rode tranquilly
+over the lost apparel. For about a mile Peter kept just behind that
+flying quadruped; and whenever the lawyer got a pull on, and the animal
+seemed inclined to reason with the bit, the “swish” of the barque in
+the breeze would put fresh terror into the brute, and away he would go
+again.
+
+“D—n you!” the lawyer shouted, but his blasphemy didn’t reach Peter.
+Then for fully three miles, until a cross road afforded a haven of
+safety, that lawyer was driven before Peter like Cain flying before
+Jehovah.
+
+Having lost so much ground, the lawyer abandoned his mission and
+decided to return to the township, permitting his steed to jog along at
+a safe distance behind the offending craft.
+
+[Illustration: PETER’S LATEST.]
+
+With a full sail, and the mast dipping and bobbing as the brig rode
+over the hills and hollows in the ill-formed street, Peter started
+to enter the township. No band played; no chorus of voices sang the
+“Conquering ’Ero”; there was nothing to greet or cheer Peter. But
+there must have been as many as fifty horses standing calmly between
+the shafts of vehicles outside the shops, and as many more fastened
+to posts by their bridles. And Peter had not proceeded twenty yards
+along that street when there wasn’t an animal in sight. They all became
+obscured in a cloud of dust that was rolling out at the other end of
+the township. And all that was to be seen in the street was a mob of
+excited men and women, pieces of sulkies, broken lamp-posts and the
+maimed and mangled remains of a Councillor, whom the Shire Clerk and
+the newspaper editor were supporting in their arms.
+
+“Don’t! Don’t hold her there!” Peter cried, when the rough hands of two
+furious policemen seized hold of the sails of his craft. “You’ll spoil
+her!”
+
+“Phwat game is this?” yelled one of the bobbies, while the other,
+seizing hold of Peter, hissed: “Yis ’ll paay fer me mahn, if yis ever
+paid fer anythin’!”
+
+Peter started to protest wildly. Peter was in trouble. But soon numbers
+of friends had gathered round him.
+
+The township lawyer, having arrived in good time, pushed himself
+forward, and, planting a card in Peter’s hand, said:
+
+“I’ve seen the whole thing; I’ll defend you.” Then the local
+representatives of six banks jostled with each other for possession of
+Peter’s ear.
+
+“On deeds, or any security like that,” each of them said, “I can let
+you have whatever you want.”
+
+“Deeds!” growled the police, “there is his _deeds_!” and they pointed
+scornfully to the maimed Councillor being borne off on a hurdle.
+
+                                THE END.
+
+
+   Wholly set up and printed in Australia by John Sands Ltd., Sydney.
+
+
+
+
+Transcriber’s Notes
+
+
+  New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the
+  public domain.
+
+  The following are corrections to the original text:
+
+  Page Correction
+  ---- -----------------------------------------------------------------
+    1  Opening single quote removed from (to be back at “Fairfield”).
+   10  Apostrophe added to (have a talk along wi’).
+   16  “adminster” changed to (inclined to administer a rebuke).
+   19  “he” changed to “be” (An’ I’d be huggin’ ’em).
+   20  Closing quote changed to double in (am I up against!” said).
+   23  Opening quote added to (“You won’t! By heavens you”).
+   32  “be” changed to “he” (wasn’t me, sir!” he blubbered,).
+   44  “squeeky” (sharp, squeaky voice).
+   47  “be” changed to “he” (At the door he paused).
+   48  “calmy” changed to (strolled in and calmly).
+   49  Closing quote and punctuation added to (“he’s going to shoot!”).
+   67  “resistence” changed to (resistance was useless).
+   70  “a” added to (a Waterbury, secured to his vest)
+   81  “imp” changed to (sunk in a limp heap).
+   99  Opening quote added to caption in (“Boots O!”).
+  101  “night-porter” hyphenated to match the rest of the text.
+  113  “Dashwod” changed to (ye rread th’ Bulletin, Dashwood?”).
+  119  Period added to caption in (Duncan Approves.)
+  120  Period added to (couldn’t exactly locate it.)
+  127  Opening quote changed to double in (“Sankey” they felt that).
+  149  Closing quote added to (“old red-skin.” Some others).
+  150  Period added to (of twenty thousand guns.)
+  151  Period added to caption in (In the Breakers.)
+  156  “peels” changed to (The peals of laughter).
+  159  “journey” changed to (he journeyed bi-weekly).
+
+
+
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78216 ***
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+<body>
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78216 ***</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+<h1>
+  THE DASHWOODS
+</h1>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="center">
+<span class="sub8">A SEQUEL TO<br></span>
+“ON AN AUSTRALIAN FARM”<br>
+<br>
+<span class="sub5">BY<br></span>
+STEELE RUDD<br>
+<span class="sub5">(A.H. DAVIS)<br>
+<span class="smcap">Author of</span> “On Our Selection;” “Our New Selection;”<br>
+“Sandy’s Selection;” “Back at Our Selection,” &amp;c.<br>
+<br>
+<i>With Fifteen full-page Illustrations by Claude Marquet</i><br></span>
+<br>
+N.S.W. BOOKSTALL CO., LTD.<br>
+SYDNEY.<br>
+1920<br>
+<br>
+<i>All Dramatic and Picture Rights Reserved.</i>
+</p>
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+
+<div class="chapter">
+<p class="center">
+<i>Copyrighted, 1911 by</i> <span class="smcap">Alfred Cecil Rowlandson</span>,<br>
+<i>26 Cremorne Road, Cremorne, and 476 George Street, Sydney,</i><br>
+<i>Australia</i>.<br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Wholly set up and printed in Australia by<br>
+John Sands Limited, Sydney.
+</p>
+</div>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+  <p class="front" id="CONTENTS">
+    CONTENTS
+  </p>
+</div>
+
+<table class='contents'>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2" class="tdc">CHAPTER I.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2" class="tdr toc">Page.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl"><a href="#Chapter_I">STAUNTON, JUNIOR</a></td>
+    <td class="tdr">1</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2" class="tdc">CHAPTER II.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl"><a href="#Chapter_II">IT WAS WILL</a></td>
+    <td class="tdr tpad">21</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2" class="tdc">CHAPTER III.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl"><a href="#Chapter_III">THE FAMILY VISIT THE THEATRE</a></td>
+    <td class="tdr tpad">34</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2" class="tdc">CHAPTER IV.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl"><a href="#Chapter_IV">THE SHERIFF’S FAITHFUL MAN</a></td>
+    <td class="tdr tpad">60</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2" class="tdc">CHAPTER V.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl"><a href="#Chapter_V">A LEADING BARRISTER</a></td>
+    <td class="tdr tpad">87</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2" class="tdc">CHAPTER VI.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl"><a href="#Chapter_VI">MEETING McCLURE</a></td>
+    <td class="tdr tpad">104</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2" class="tdc">CHAPTER VII.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl"><a href="#Chapter_VII">JAMES AND PETER ATTEND CHURCH</a></td>
+    <td class="tdr tpad">122</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2" class="tdc">CHAPTER VIII.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl"><a href="#Chapter_VIII">IN THE PUBLIC DOMAIN</a></td>
+    <td class="tdr tpad">132</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2" class="tdc">CHAPTER IX.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl"><a href="#Chapter_IX">PETER IN THE BREAKERS</a></td>
+    <td class="tdr tpad">143</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2" class="tdc">CHAPTER X.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl"><a href="#Chapter_X">HOME AGAIN</a></td>
+    <td class="tdr tpad">154</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+  <p class="front" id="ILLUSTRATIONS">
+    ILLUSTRATIONS
+  </p>
+</div>
+
+<table>
+  <tr>
+    <td colspan="2" class="tdr toc">Page.</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#in_the_sale_room">In the Sale Room</a></td>
+    <td class="tdr tpad">13</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#a_breach_of_friendship">A Breach of Friendship</a></td>
+    <td class="tdr tpad">25</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#at_the_theatre">At the Theatre</a></td>
+    <td class="tdr tpad">41</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#marias_baby">Maria’s Baby</a></td>
+    <td class="tdr tpad">51</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#dealing_with_the_judges_orders">Dealing with the Judge’s Order</a></td>
+    <td class="tdr tpad">65</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#in_the_wrong_box">In the Wrong Box</a></td>
+    <td class="tdr tpad">85</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#one_in_the_morning">One in the Morning</a></td>
+    <td class="tdr tpad">91</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#boots">“Boots O!”</a></td>
+    <td class="tdr tpad">99</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#mcclures_hat">McClure’s Hat</a></td>
+    <td class="tdr tpad">109</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#duncan_approves">Duncan Approves</a></td>
+    <td class="tdr tpad">117</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#the_church_collection">The Church Collection</a></td>
+    <td class="tdr tpad">129</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#now_then_spofforth">“Now, Then, Spofforth!”</a></td>
+    <td class="tdr tpad">135</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#guess_who">“Guess Who!”</a></td>
+    <td class="tdr tpad">141</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#in_the_breakers">In the Breakers</a></td>
+    <td class="tdr tpad">151</td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdl smcap"><a href="#peters_latest">Peter’s Latest</a></td>
+    <td class="tdr tpad">161</td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_1">[Pg 1]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_I">
+    <span class="smcap">Chapter I.</span>
+    <br>
+    Staunton, Junior.
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">The</span> Dashwoods had been a full week in the great metropolis. Each day
+they visited different localities, and each day fresh wonders and
+glories were revealed to them.</p>
+
+<p>They all enjoyed the city—all but Mrs. Dashwood and Maria. The former
+tired of it after the first day, and saw nothing to enthuse about.
+There was nothing real, nothing natural there, to appeal to her homely
+spirit. In her heart she longed <span id="cor_01"></span>to be back at “Fairfield”—longed to
+be amongst the fowls, and the ducks, and the dairy cows, and to see
+again the great wheatfields, and the blue peaks of the ranges, and vast
+plainlands stretching far away to the boundless west. But for the sake
+of the others she endured, without complaint, the stuffy, noisy, dirty
+streets of the artificial city, with its crowds of jostling humanity.
+She even pretended to share the joys and excitements of her family, and
+almost ran her legs off chasing trains and trams to please and humour
+them. An unselfish mother was Mrs. Dashwood, who lived to make life
+light and bright for those around her.</p>
+
+<p>As for Maria, she liked the city “right enough,” but nobody, she
+reckoned, “could see anything, or go anywhere <span class="pagenum" id="Page_2">[Pg 2]</span>in peace with a blessed
+baby to look after.” And one day, when in extreme distress about the
+infant, she threatened to leave the encumbrance at home with its father
+the next time she came to town. To which resolution Tilly fervently
+said “Amen,” and fired Maria’s family pride. She flew into a temper,
+and proceeded to call Tilly names, and to remind her of things she
+did when at school, but Mrs. Dashwood intervened in time to save the
+situation and preserve the family name.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, Ah baint be goin’ weth yow to-day,” old John informed the
+family at the breakfast table, “mah old friend, Robert Staunton, has
+herd we’re dahn, an’ writes sayin’ as he wants to see me perticler. He
+called twahce a’ready, but we moost abeen aht soomewheres he thenks.”</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Dashwood wondered how the Stauntons were getting along.</p>
+
+<p>“They roons a produce place soomewheres,” old John answered, “but Ah
+don’t know wheres exactly yet, Eliza.”</p>
+
+<p>Hailing a waiter scurrying past with two trays of “returned empties” in
+his hands, old John questioned him.</p>
+
+<p>“Staunton &amp; Staunton, Solicitors?” interrogated the waiter.</p>
+
+<p>“Hoh! hoh! hoh!—Noh-h,” laughed old John, “none o’ thet kidney. He be
+too honest for thet; Robert’s a big man—bigger’n <i>me</i>; an’ his
+wahfe’s a big woman. Theey’re <span class="pagenum" id="Page_3">[Pg 3]</span>both old friends o’ ahn—ever since theey
+coomed to th’ coontry, and——”</p>
+
+<p>The waiter was impatient and broke in on old John.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, there are several gentlemen in the city bigger than you, sir,”
+he answered, “but I’ll enquire at the office,” and away he glided.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah-h,” muttered old John, “Ah-h!”</p>
+
+<p>Tilly and Polly followed the flunkey’s flying coat-tails with their
+eyes, and smiled.</p>
+
+<p>“A wery erbligin’ young man thet be,” said old John, “wery erbligin’.”</p>
+
+<p>“When there’s half-a-crown put into his hand, father. Ha! ha! ha,” from
+Peter.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, Ah dedn’t give ’n no half-crahn, lad,” replied the parent, in
+defence of the waiter.</p>
+
+<p>“No, but I did, yesterday,” from Peter.</p>
+
+<p>James looked up quickly, and stared at his brother as at one who had
+suddenly gone out of his mind. Tilly and Polly opened their eyes in
+wonder, and exclaimed simultaneously:</p>
+
+<p>“<i>You</i>, Peter?”</p>
+
+<p>James struggled hard to suppress his merriment.</p>
+
+<p>“What, <i>yow</i> gin him half-a-crahn?” old John asked, in
+astonishment.</p>
+
+<p>Peter nodded, but deemed it wise to offer no explanation.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_4">[Pg 4]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Did you give it to him in mistake for a penny, Peter?” Tilly asked,
+with a nasty giggle, in which the others joined.</p>
+
+<p>“No,” Peter answered; “a gentleman was leaving in a cab yesterday, and
+he left it with me to give to him,” and he let off a laugh that made
+even those at the most distant table look up.</p>
+
+<p>Tilly and Polly and James felt ashamed of their brother, but old John
+saw only the joke.</p>
+
+<p>“Wery good,” he said; “yow hed ’n all thet tahme, lad, yow hed ’n raht
+enoof.”</p>
+
+<p>They finished breakfast.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, we’re going for a trip in the <i>Kangaroo</i> to Bung Island,”
+Tilly said, rising; and speaking for the female portion of the party;
+“I don’t know what James and Peter intend to do.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’m off again in that train that goes to America,” Peter said, with a
+cheerful chuckle. “It’s the best fun of th’ lot.”</p>
+
+<p>“To Amerikee?” old John repeated curiously; “yow’ll want summat to go
+theer with, lad.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, I want a couple o’ shillings, anyhow,” Peter said, glad of the
+chance to apply for some more funds. “I haven’t a sixpence left,” and
+he turned a pocket of his vest inside out.</p>
+
+<p>Polly and Tilly accused Peter of imposing upon the good <span class="pagenum" id="Page_5">[Pg 5]</span>nature of
+their parent, and declared he hadn’t spent a shilling of his money.</p>
+
+<p>“H’m!... Ah-h,” said old John, thoughtfully, then turning to his other
+son: “An’ where be yow goin’, James?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I don’t know,” James drawled, “I mightn’t go anywhere.”</p>
+
+<p>“What’s the use of asking <i>him</i>, father?” Peter said, with a grin,
+“he’ll be off to spend the day again in the Art Gallery, gaping at
+those old mares with their heads and tails cocked, squealing for their
+foals. ‘The Cry of the Mothers’; isn’t that what it is called, James”
+(grinning at his brother). “He looked at it for two hours yesterday.”</p>
+
+<p>James treated his brother with contempt.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, well,” Polly said, fumbling with her gloves, and glancing round
+to see that no outsiders were listening, “when James goes home, Peter,
+perhaps he’ll be able to paint a picture of a donkey with its ears
+cocked, which he’ll call ‘The Bray of the Brother.’”</p>
+
+<p>James treated his brother to a broad grin, while Peter forced a short
+“ha! ha!” and rolled his eyes about.</p>
+
+<p>“She wer’ too smart for yow thet tahme, lad,” old John said, with a
+broad smile. “Too smart!” and, rolling his serviette into a heap, he
+rose and led the way out. The others followed in single file.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_6">[Pg 6]</span></p>
+
+<p>The meeting of old John and Robert Staunton, the burly produce dealer,
+was a strenuous and boisterous affair. They greeted each other like two
+roaring lions conducting a courtship. Their handshake was an exhibition
+of strength and endurance.</p>
+
+<p>“Blest if I ever saw you looking so well, John,” Robert hollered,
+caressing the plump hand of his country friend and looking into his
+eyes. “Why, you’re got up like a Suffolk Punch.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ah-h,” rejoined old John, “An’ Ah’ve sin wus Clahdesdales nor yow,
+Robert. Hoh! hoh! hoh!”</p>
+
+<p>Then they “hoh-hoh-hoh-ed” together, and hit each other on the back,
+and rocked about, and finally adjourned to the “Lounge” room, of which
+they soon became the sole occupants.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Ah’ve been adoin’ well for a long tahme, now,” old John said, in
+answer to the other’s enquiries about his welfare. “Seasons baint be
+lahke ’n were in olden days, Robert. Markets are fairish, now, an’
+lan’s gone oop won’erful. People on th’ lan’s doin’ pretty well, an’
+they’ll do a lot better yet. There be soome as be a bit frahtent, tho’,
+o’ th’ Labour Party an’ th’ Lan’ Tax, but——”</p>
+
+<p>“But surely <i>you</i> don’t believe in a Land Tax, John?” Robert broke
+in in tones of surprise.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah <i>do</i>, then, Robert,” was the answer, “an’ Ah thinks <span class="pagenum" id="Page_7">[Pg 7]</span>it’s
+what’ll make th’ country all round—anyways, thet’s how it seems to me.”</p>
+
+<p>“For the life of me, John, I can’t see how it’s going to do anything of
+the kind. How can it, when it’s going to tax the farmer right off his
+land?”</p>
+
+<p>Old John laughed.</p>
+
+<p>“Robert,” he said, tapping his friend on the shoulder, “thet’s what th’
+noospapers tells yow, them as will have to pay for theer footin’. But
+don’t yow believe ’n. They only wants th’ farmer to fight theer battles
+for ’n. No, no-h, th’ Lan’ Tax won’t hurt th’ farmer what <i>farms</i>,
+it’ll <i>help</i> him. But the one as don’t farm, but sits on the land
+lahke a dug in th’ manger, will have to skedaddle and make room for him
+as wants it; an’ where theer be only one farm now, theer will be three
+or four bahme-by, which will all mean, Robert, thet theer will be a
+lot more produce for yow to sell on commission, an’ a lot more boots
+an’ shoes an’ tea an’ kerosene sold by th’ storekeeper, and a lot more
+drays and waggons and horses used up. Anyway, thet’s what it all seems
+to me, Robert, but if yow can show as it waint be thet way, well, Ah’m
+prepared to listen to yow.”</p>
+
+<p>But Robert held no views other than what he had already briefly
+expressed.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, of course,” he said, slowly, “if they don’t touch the small
+farmer, it will be all right, I suppose. And if, as <span class="pagenum" id="Page_8">[Pg 8]</span>you say, it will
+mean more produce for me to sell, well, then, John, I’m with it all the
+time,” and he laughed cheerfully.</p>
+
+<p>“Yow be a hopportunist, then, Robert,” and old John laughed on his own
+account.</p>
+
+<p>The conversation turned to family affairs, and, according to Robert,
+two of his daughters were married and living happily with their
+respective husbands on allotments in the suburbs. Another, Mary Ellen,
+was only “engaged,” and was employed in the “fancy” department of one
+of the large establishments.</p>
+
+<p>“But, Will, my eldest boy,” he went on, “I’m not sure what to make of
+him. I’d like him to take to the land if he would; but I wanted to get
+your advice about him first, John, before putting out money in a farm
+for him. You see, I don’t want to find out that he’s not fitted for it,
+or that it’s not fitted for him, when it’s too late. I want to be sure
+beforehand.”</p>
+
+<p>“How old be ’n?” asked old John, with the air of a medico inquiring
+about the constitution of his patient.</p>
+
+<p>“He’s getting on for twenty,” Robert answered, “but to look at him,
+I’m blowed if you would think he was more than fifteen,” and added,
+with a look of pride in his eye, “all our youngsters look a lot younger
+than they are, though. You remember how young and frisky my old father
+looked at seventy-five, and who would ever think that I was getting on
+for fifty?”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_9">[Pg 9]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Fefty,” soliloquised old John; “Ah thought yow wer’ a lot more ’n
+thet, Robert.”</p>
+
+<p>“Get away with you,” and Robert worked back to the merits of his son
+Will.</p>
+
+<p>“Is ’n any size?” inquired old John.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, of course you know,” the other answered, “youngsters brought up
+in the town don’t grow like they do in the country.”</p>
+
+<p>“H’m! Ah-h,” reflected old John; “an’ have he a lahkin’ for farmin’?”</p>
+
+<p>“A liking!” and Robert laughed a grim sort of laugh. “Th’ blinded
+young scamp, he hasn’t got a liking for anything except billiards, and
+football, and hanging round street corners at night.”</p>
+
+<p>Old John shook his head gravely.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, my attitude in the matter is this,” said Robert; “I was thinking
+if I could only get him on to the land with someone, someone who would
+work the devil out of him, and, at the same time; take an interest in
+him, you know, that it would make a man of him.”</p>
+
+<p>“H’m!... Ah-h!” mused old John.</p>
+
+<p>Robert stroked his chin thoughtfully and waited.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah-h!” old John murmured again.</p>
+
+<p>Robert saw the futility of beating about the bush, and came right to
+the point.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_10">[Pg 10]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Would <i>you</i> take him for a while, John?” he asked. “He’d go to
+<i>your</i> place, I believe, and of course I wouldn’t expect a wage
+for him, or anything like that.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” answered old John, slowly, “Ah only took one yoongster in thet
+way in mah life, Robert; an’ Ah sed to the wife at th’ tahme thet Ah
+would never take anoother.”</p>
+
+<p>“Just so,” from Robert, disappointedly.</p>
+
+<p>“But,” old John proceeded, “seein’ as it’s to do a good turn by
+<i>yow</i>, Robert, Ah might change mah mind.”</p>
+
+<p>“I wouldn’t forget it if you did, John,” Robert said, with a pleased
+look.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, then, Ah would lahke to <span id="cor_10"></span>have a talk along wi’ him,” the other
+suggested, “a talk wi’ himself, yow un’erstand, an’ without ’n knowin’
+as who Ah em.”</p>
+
+<p>Robert entered into the idea with enthusiasm.</p>
+
+<p>“An’ Ah could tell yow then, Robert, if wert wise to spend mooney on
+’n.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, if you’ll come along and jump on a tram with me, now,” Robert
+suggested eagerly, “we’ll go down to my office, and you can have a chat
+with him there without him knowing who the deuce you are. But, mind
+you, John” (the light of parental pride filling his eyes) “he’s as cute
+as you make them, is Will.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ah-h,” from Old John.</p>
+
+<p>Then they rose and left the hotel together.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_11">[Pg 11]</span></p>
+
+<p>“You know,” Robert said, when they were seated in the tram, “the young
+devil is full of brains if he likes to use them. ‘Look here, Staunton,’
+his schoolmaster said to me one day, ‘don’t you take that boy away from
+me yet; you leave him at school for another couple of years, and I’ll
+make something of him for you. There’s nothing he can’t do if he only
+makes up his mind to it.’”</p>
+
+<p>“Ah-h,” answered old John, with a humorous twinkle in his eye, “then it
+wer’ a pety, Robert, thet yow didn’t leave ’n at school.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, yes,” Robert mumbled, “it <i>was</i>, and I can see it now. No
+doubt, no doubt!”</p>
+
+<p>They alighted from the tram while it was in motion, Robert landed on
+his feet, and old John on top of his head.</p>
+
+<p>“God bless my soul, are you hurt?” Robert exclaimed, rushing to his
+friend and standing him up.</p>
+
+<p>Old John spat out large samples of the city soil, and brushed some more
+from his swell suit, and tried to laugh, and said:</p>
+
+<p>“Well, Ah dedn’t mean to come dahn thet way.”</p>
+
+<p>“You might have been killed,” Robert said, with much concern.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, Ah ain’t, Robert,” and old John laughed again, and pulled on his
+hat, which had left him when he struck the street.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_12">[Pg 12]</span></p>
+
+<p>They proceeded along a footpath to Robert’s place of business.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, now,” Robert said on nearing the entrance, “I’ll go in first,
+John, and walk through to my own office, and you follow in a minute or
+two. You’ll see Will at the desk in the auction room, along with young
+Henry, the message boy. You can’t mistake Will, and he won’t know who
+you——”</p>
+
+<p>Old John motioned Robert off in a way that plainly indicated he
+required no instructions.</p>
+
+<p>Robert passed in.</p>
+
+<p>“Was anyone looking for me when I was out, Will?” he called on reaching
+the door of his office.</p>
+
+<p>“Anyone looking for the boss?” Will said, in undertones to the message
+boy.</p>
+
+<p>The message boy shook his head in the negative.</p>
+
+<p>“No one,” Will shouted, confidently, and resumed the useless occupation
+of pasting “questionable” postcards into an album.</p>
+
+<p>Presently old John, with an air of studied indifference, sauntered
+clumsily in and began mooning round the auction room. He paused before
+a rusty-looking oil-painting suspended from the wall with cob-web and
+vermin, and gaped at it. The oil-painting was supposed to represent the
+figure and features of a State Premier.</p>
+
+<p>The message boy drew Will’s attention to the visitor.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_13">[Pg 13]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp55" id="in_the_sale_room" style="max-width: 145.875em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_013.jpg" alt="" data-role="presentation">
+  <figcaption>
+    <span class="smcap">In the Sale Room.</span>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_14"></a><a id="Page_15"></a>[Pg 15]</span></p>
+
+<p>Will looked up, and for a moment or two eyed the broad back and long
+coat of old John.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s lost its mother,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>The message boy giggled; Will was a constant source of humour to the
+message boy. But for Will the message boy’s existence would have been a
+dull and uninteresting one in the office.</p>
+
+<p>Old John, in admiration of the work of art, grunted: “H’m,” and “Ah-h!”</p>
+
+<p>Will, on hearing the noise, looked up again, and, placing a thumb to
+his nose, worked his fingers at old John.</p>
+
+<p>The message boy ducked his head under the bench and gave way to mirth.</p>
+
+<p>Old John fixed a pair of spectacles on his nose and proceeded to
+examine the picture closely, like a woman judging fancy work at a
+country show.</p>
+
+<p>Will became interested. He reached to the floor, and, lifting a stray
+onion that lay there, pelted it hard at old John’s head. The onion hit
+the State Premier in the stomach and made a hole in him.</p>
+
+<p>Old John jumped round.</p>
+
+<p>“Nit yer bloomin’ larks, now!” Will said seizing the message boy by the
+neck, “an’ garn outer this an’ do yer work. Chuckin’ onions about!”</p>
+
+<p>The message boy snatched up a bunch of letters that required <span class="pagenum" id="Page_16">[Pg 16]</span>posting
+and fled, leaving a train of giggles behind as he disappeared.</p>
+
+<p>Old John, with a serious expression on his face, approached Will.</p>
+
+<p>“Yow should’nt let ’n do thet,” he said, pointing to the punctured
+Prime Minister. “Thet be a shame!”</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Let</i> him!” Will answered, in a voice of scorn, “I can’t stop
+him! But if I was the boss here I would. I’d spear him without warnin’.
+But the ol’ man, he’s far too easy, mister. ’Tween you and me he ain’t
+fit to be over a hen coop.”</p>
+
+<p>“Be yow a son o’ Mr. Staunton’s?” old John asked, tactfully.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, so far as I know, I am, mister,” Will replied, “but I couldn’t
+swear to it,” and he grinned.</p>
+
+<p>Old John looked shocked.</p>
+
+<p>Will laughed, and added:</p>
+
+<p>“They say it’s a wise bloke that knows his own Pa—ain’t that so mister?”</p>
+
+<p>Old John, half inclined to laugh, half inclined to <span id="cor_16"></span>administer a rebuke,
+was lost for a reply.</p>
+
+<p>But Will neither waited nor looked for one.</p>
+
+<p>“<i>There’s</i> a pair o’ good legs,” he said, shoving one of the
+postcards into old John’s hand.</p>
+
+<p>Old John glanced at the card, then burst into a loud <span class="pagenum" id="Page_17">[Pg 17]</span>“hoh! hoh!
+hoh—hoh! hoh! hoh-h-h!” and dropped it on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>“You wouldn’t guess in a year o’ Sundays where I got that from,
+mister,” Will said, picking up the card.</p>
+
+<p>Old John, with tears in his eyes, stared curiously at the son of his
+friend Robert.</p>
+
+<p>Will cast a cautious glance at his parent’s door.</p>
+
+<p>“I got that one,” he whispered in confidence, “locked up in the old
+man’s private drawer.”</p>
+
+<p>“Hoh! hoh! hoh! hoh!—hoh-h-h!” and old John swung round and stamped
+hard on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>Hearing the roar of laughter, Robert stealthily opened his door and
+looked out and smiled.</p>
+
+<p>“Will’s amusing Dashwood, as I thought he would,” he murmured proudly
+to himself, and quietly closed the door again.</p>
+
+<p>But the turn the interview had taken was not what old John desired.</p>
+
+<p>“What Ah’ve coome abaht, young man,” he said, approaching Will again,
+“is th’ price o’ maize. How have it been sellin’ wi’ yow people?”</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Maize?</i>” said Will, assuming an important business air.
+“<i>Dead</i>, sir; a perfect drug. So’s wheat, and potatoes are a bally
+pest.... Why, are you a farmer, mister?”</p>
+
+<p>Old John saw his opportunity.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_18">[Pg 18]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Ah-h; Ah em, lad, an’ Ah’m proud on it.”</p>
+
+<p>“You look it,” said Will, “you’re fat enough for one; but I’d have
+taken you for something better than a cocky.”</p>
+
+<p>“There be things a lot wus nor cockyin’, don’t you think?” replied old
+John.</p>
+
+<p>“Doing time would be, I suppose,” said Will, with a chuckle.</p>
+
+<p>Under ordinary circumstances old John might have warmly resented the
+slander. But he overlooked it.</p>
+
+<p>“No, don’t you thenk, lad,” he said, “thet yow would be mooch better
+orf setting behahnd a team o’ horses an’ a plough than cocked oop theer
+on thet stool every day?”</p>
+
+<p>“Who, <i>me</i>!” indignantly from Will. “<i>Dicken!</i>”</p>
+
+<p>“Ah-h, yow lad.”</p>
+
+<p>Will laughed.</p>
+
+<p>“Why, that’s what the old man is always preaching,” he went on,
+lighting a cigarette and blowing long thin streaks of smoke at old
+John. “The old cove” (glancing again at the door) “has tried lots of
+times to get me to go on the land. He wanted me to go with some old
+coot up Fairfield way—old Dashwood. Do you know him at all, mister?”</p>
+
+<p>Will waited for a reply.</p>
+
+<p>Old John appeared to be in difficulties with himself.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah-h,” he muttered at last, “Ah knows him a leetle.”</p>
+
+<p>“A silly, religious old goat, ain’t he, says grace before <span class="pagenum" id="Page_19">[Pg 19]</span>pluggin’
+into the pumpkin?” further enquired Will.</p>
+
+<p>Old John’s eyes and mouth opened wide.</p>
+
+<p>“He’s got a couple of jolly fine daughters, though, I believe,” Will
+went on, rummaging himself for a match, “as good-looking as he’s ugly.”</p>
+
+<p>Old John’s features started to work as if he was chewing something
+hard, and his fists closed and opened automatically.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s curious how a lot o’ these ugly old blokes,” Will went on,
+growing philosophical, “have such good-looking daughters.”</p>
+
+<p>Old John made an effort to speak, but couldn’t.</p>
+
+<p>“How do you account for that, mister?”</p>
+
+<p>A volcano seemed to be silently at work somewhere in the interior of
+old John.</p>
+
+<p>“I reckon,” said Will, “if I went to his place it wouldn’t be driving
+teams I’d be at, I’d be driving those tarts around pretty slick. An’
+<span id="cor_19"></span>I’d be huggin’ ’em an’ muggin’ ’em in the dairy. Oh, laws!” (Will
+placed his hand over his heart and sighed.) “<i>What</i> a time I’d
+have, mister!”</p>
+
+<p>Old John staggered back, and made a choking sound in his throat.</p>
+
+<p>“I wouldn’t be there long,” laughed Will, “before old Johnny Dashwood
+would be wanting to know what I meant by——”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_20">[Pg 20]</span></p>
+
+<p>“<i>Damn</i> yow for a ill-bred city skunk!” old John burst out
+violently: “Do you know who yow be atalkin’ to?” and he leaned over and
+glared ferociously at Will.</p>
+
+<p>Will, suddenly turning pale, deserted the stool and placed his back
+against the wall.</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Ah’m John Dashwood</i>, Ah em,” fairly shouted the other.</p>
+
+<p>“Strike me curly, what <span id="cor_20"></span>am I up against!” said Will, and snatching up
+his hat, darted through a side door into the street.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="i_020" style="max-width: 111.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_020.jpg" alt="" data-role="presentation">
+</figure>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_21">[Pg 21]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_II">
+    <span class="smcap">Chapter II.</span>
+    <br>
+    It Was Will.
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">In</span> the heat of temper old John turned on his heel, and abruptly left
+the auction room without reporting his opinion or impressions of Will
+to Robert Staunton.</p>
+
+<p>Robert, in his office, sat waiting the result of the interview. He
+waited till the clock pointed to lunch hour. Then, curious as to the
+cause of the prolonged absence of his friend, he opened the door
+noiselessly, and looked out. There was no sign of John or of the
+“staff.” Robert lifted his voice and called: “<i>Will!</i>”</p>
+
+<p>There was no answer.</p>
+
+<p>He called “<i>Henry!</i>”</p>
+
+<p>There was no Henry about, either.</p>
+
+<p>“Will’s up to some of his games, I know,” Robert said to himself.
+“Slipped Dashwood home for dinner, I bet. That’s where I’ll find them,”
+and, turning to a basin that sat under a brass tap in a corner of his
+little den, he proceeded to wash his hands.</p>
+
+<p>“About five minutes to catch the tram,” he murmured, glancing at the
+clock, when suddenly the door, as though a <span class="pagenum" id="Page_22">[Pg 22]</span>heavy horse troubled with
+mange had rubbed against it, burst in and revealed old John, with
+solemn, set countenance, standing like the statue of Captain Cook upon
+the threshold.</p>
+
+<p>Robert experienced a pleasant surprise at the unexpected appearance of
+his country friend.</p>
+
+<p>“Where the deuce have you been all the time?” he said, giving his hands
+a final rub in the towel. “Why, I was just going to run off home to
+hunt you up. I made sure Will had put you up to playing some joke on
+me——”</p>
+
+<p>Then, as he adjusted the towel in its place: “What do you think of
+Will? How did you get on with him, John? Do you think you can make a
+farmer of him?”</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Robert!</i>” began old John, in tones of sorrow mingled with anger,
+“Ah dersent want to saay nothink whatsoomever abaht yower son; let thet
+be oonderstud clear atween us, oncet an’ for ever!”</p>
+
+<p>Robert opened his eyes and stared as though he had been hit with
+something.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah dersent thenk,” old John continued, “thet he’s a credit to yow,
+Robert, or thet yow, as his faither, has been a credit overmooch to
+him.”</p>
+
+<p>Robert was a man of quick temper, and there was a lot of conceit and
+false city pride about him.</p>
+
+<p>“<i>What!</i>” he said, staring at old John as though he couldn’t
+believe what he had heard.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_23">[Pg 23]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Just what Ah sez, an’ nothink more, an’ nothink less,” replied the
+other, with firmness.</p>
+
+<p>Robert was satisfied he had heard correctly.</p>
+
+<p>“To <i>h—l</i> with you,” he shouted, upsetting his office stool by
+the excited motion he made with his hands, the noise of which made a
+fitting accompaniment to his outburst of temper. “Would you insult me
+and my son—an’—an’—an’ in my own <i>office</i>? It’s like your d——
+cheek! And I won’t stand it, not from <i>you</i> Dashwood, nor from
+<i>anyone</i>! I wouldn’t stand it from the King of England! By heavens
+I wouldn’t; and I’m an Englishman, as good an Englishman as was ever
+<i>born</i>!” He thumped the table hard with his soft, flabby fist.
+Then, puffing and blustering like a whale, glared at old John.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah insults <i>no one</i>!” old John roared back, squaring his
+shoulders and standing his ground. “Do you hear <i>thet</i>?” (a
+dramatic pause). “Ah insults <i>no one</i>, Robert Staunton! But what
+Ah thenks Ah means to say, and——”</p>
+
+<p>“You <i>won’t</i>!” Robert interrupted furiously. “You <i>won’t</i>! By
+<span id="cor_23"></span>heavens you won’t; not in <i>my</i> office!”</p>
+
+<p>“Ah <i>will</i>” yelled old John, “an’ Ah will say it here, an’——”</p>
+
+<p>“You d— well <i>won’t</i>, I say,” howled Robert, shoving his face
+close into John’s. “If you utter one more word you’ll go out of
+here—by—by—by——”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_24">[Pg 24]</span></p>
+
+<p>In his fury the right word failed him. “<i>Dashwood!</i>” he bellowed
+in a higher key, “don’t you compel me to strike you, or by my soul look
+here!” He seized a chair with both hands and waved it over old John’s
+head. At the same moment Will, who meanwhile had returned to his desk,
+overhearing the noise, stealthily approached the open door of his
+parent’s private office, and stood, a silent spectator of the quarrel.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t yow do anythink you’ll be sorry for, Robert Staunton!” roared
+old John, without flinching from the uplifted chair.</p>
+
+<p>“Get out of here, then,” roared the other.</p>
+
+<p>“When Ah’m ready!” said old John.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, get ready, set, go!” came suddenly from Will, and with a violent
+pull of old John’s coat-tails he dragged him to the broad of his back
+and made a great noise with him on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>Old John was never more surprised in his life than when he found
+himself on the floor. With the howls of an enraged animal he struggled
+to his feet and pursued Will round the auction room. For a moment or
+two it was all joy to Will. He gloried in the exhilarating sport of
+evading capture, and chuckled as he dodged in and out and round about
+bags and bales and miscellaneous cargo.</p>
+
+<p>“Scotch him, Spider,” He shouted to the message boy, who<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_25"></a><a id="Page_26"></a><a id="Page_27"></a>[Pg 27]</span> chanced to
+return to his post just in time to share in the excitement. “Scotch
+him!”</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp54" id="a_breach_of_friendship" style="max-width: 147.5em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_025.jpg" alt="" data-role="presentation">
+  <figcaption>
+    <span class="smcap">A Breach of Friendship.</span>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>The message boy seemed to understand well enough what Will required
+of him, but, like a growing pup that experiences for the first time
+a desire to take part in the frolics of older dogs, he hesitated and
+frisked nervously about in the one spot whenever old John shuffled past
+him. Once he made a half-hearted attempt to seize hold of old John, but
+courage seemed to fail him.</p>
+
+<p>“Scotch him, darn it, Spider!” Will cried again, then slipped on a
+banana peel, and sprawled on the floor.</p>
+
+<p>“Yow yoong dug!” cried old John, “Ah’ve got yer now!” and with open
+hands bent down to scoop him up.</p>
+
+<p>“Yer fritent scowser, Spider!” Will yelled. “Scotch him!”</p>
+
+<p>The messenger danced about like a chained monkey for a second or two,
+then finally rushed forward and shoved old John hard in the rear while
+he was in the act of stooping. Instead of securing his assailant old
+John fell head first over him, and made more noise than the dropping
+of several hundredweights of iron dumb-bells upon the boards. Will was
+relieved; and, struggling to his feet, he hopped away on one leg, and
+disappeared. The message boy had dived out in advance of him.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_28">[Pg 28]</span></p>
+
+<p>Old John rose and glared all about, then brushed himself with his
+hands. He groaned several times, then approached Robert’s office door
+again.</p>
+
+<p>“What Ah coomed here to say te yow, Robert Staunton, wer’ this,” he
+said, doggedly. “If you dersent keep a taht rein on thet there son o’
+yow’n, he’ll get ’n into trouble one o’ these days! Gud day!”</p>
+
+<p>Then, turning away, he went into the street, and made for his hotel.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Will, delighted with the turn things had taken, frisked into his
+father’s office to glean further information about the quarrel.</p>
+
+<p>“Did you ever in your life hear such infernal impudence?” puffed the
+parent, his passion not one bit abated, “for a d— pumpkin man like that
+to come here and insult me in my own office!”</p>
+
+<p>“I’m blest if I could make out what the deuce had gone wrong when I
+heard yer both slingin’ off,” said Will, cheerfully, and added: “He
+wanted to deal it out to you, did he, dad?”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_29">[Pg 29]</span></p>
+
+<p>“He wouldn’t deal much to me, I’ll warrant!” and the burly produce man
+walked savagely round his dingy little den.</p>
+
+<p>“I made sure yer was goin’ to spread him out with th’ furniture,” Will
+ventured, with a grin.</p>
+
+<p>But other thoughts began to occupy the mind of the parent.</p>
+
+<p>“What did <i>you</i> say to him?” he demanded, turning suddenly upon
+Will, and fixing him with angry eyes. “Did you say anything to offend
+Dashwood?”</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Me?</i>” and Will struck a surprised attitude. “Offend Mister
+Dashwood? Why, I didn’t know he <i>was</i> Mister Dashwood!”</p>
+
+<p>“That’s not answering the question I asked you! Did you say anything,
+or do anything to him at all?” and the parent lifted his voice in a way
+that made Will start.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I spoke to him, of course, when he spoke to me,” Will answered
+slyly.</p>
+
+<p>“What th’ devil was it you said to him, then?” demanded the parent.</p>
+
+<p>“What was it I said to him?” Will repeated, sparring for time.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes!” and the parent clenched his fists.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_30">[Pg 30]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Oh, he just asked me how produce was going, and——”</p>
+
+<p>“And what?”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, he said something er—about—er——”</p>
+
+<p>“About what?” loudly from the parent.</p>
+
+<p>“Er—about <i>farming</i>.”</p>
+
+<p>“What about farming?”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, I think” (hesitating) “that he asked me if I’d care to go on a
+farm!”</p>
+
+<p>Robert felt he was on the right track for a solution of the trouble,
+and yelled at the top of his voice:</p>
+
+<p>“And what th’ devil did you say in answer to that; out with it!”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I said it would be just the glassy marble—the sort of thing
+I’d like to be at, that is, as near as I can remember.” Will was a
+brilliant liar.</p>
+
+<p>Robert was baffled. He felt convinced of his son’s innocence, and old
+John’s attitude was surrounded with deeper mystery than before.</p>
+
+<p>“An’ that was all he said to you?” he asked, in a calm mood.</p>
+
+<p>“He went away then,” said Will, committing more <span class="pagenum" id="Page_31">[Pg 31]</span>perjury, “and I never
+saw him any more till I see you going to wooden him with the furniture.”</p>
+
+<p>“Curious!” reflected the parent, “d— curious!” and, seating himself in
+his chair, sat thinking the matter over.</p>
+
+<p>Will lost no time getting out of the office. It was too warm an
+atmosphere for Will’s frame of mind just then.</p>
+
+<p>“The boss is in a devil of a pelt,” he informed the message boy, whom
+he encountered on his way in with a letter that had arrived for the
+“firm.” “Be careful what y’ say, Spider, if he asks anything, or he’ll
+sack y’ sure as yer livin’!”</p>
+
+<p>If there was one thing in this world that the message boy dreaded
+more than another it was the thoughts of losing his five shillings a
+week. And, whenever the bare possibility of such a disaster was even
+suggested to Henry, painful visions of the distraction and penury
+his mother would be reduced to in consequence rose up before him and
+disturbed his peace of mind.</p>
+
+<p>“Who’s that from?” his employer growled, as the boy nervously placed
+the letter before him on the table.</p>
+
+<p>He ventured no reply, but commenced a hasty retreat.</p>
+
+<p>“Henry, come here!” and Robert called him back.</p>
+
+<p>Henry’s heart went cold, and he returned, looking pale as death, and
+trembling like a captured hare.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_32">[Pg 32]</span></p>
+
+<p>“H’m!” mumbled Robert, as he finished reading the letter. Then, putting
+the document aside and turning to the boy:</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I wanted to ask you, Henry, if by any chance you happened to say
+anything to Mr. Dashwood when he was in this morning that annoyed him,
+though I don’t think you did, did you?”</p>
+
+<p>Henry went to pieces.</p>
+
+<p>“It <span id="cor_32"></span>wasn’t me, sir!” he blubbered, “it—it was <i>Will</i>!” then he
+opened his mouth and bawled as though he were being tortured with hot
+coals and molten lead.</p>
+
+<p>Robert sprang from his chair.</p>
+
+<p>“It was Will, was it?” he repeated.</p>
+
+<p>“Y-y-yes!” howled Henry.</p>
+
+<p>“Now, don’t be afraid, I’m not going to say anything to you, Henry;
+just be quiet and tell me what you know about it.”</p>
+
+<p>“He—he” (sob) “he” (another sob) “he—he” (several sobs) “threw—threw”
+(some more sobs) “a onion at—at—him.”</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Who?</i> At Mr. Dashwood? <i>Will</i> did?” Robert gasped. “By
+heavens!”</p>
+
+<p>“Y-y-yes, s’!” moaned Henry.</p>
+
+<p>“<i>That’s</i> it, is it! Th’ d— young liar!” The outraged <span class="pagenum" id="Page_33">[Pg 33]</span>parent bit
+his lip. “I see it all now! Th’ confounded young blackguard!”</p>
+
+<p>Then addressing Henry again:</p>
+
+<p>“Just tell Will to come here; I want to see him.”</p>
+
+<p>But Will, who had been listening at the door, made off, and, on
+reaching the street, turned and shook his fist threateningly at the
+message boy.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="i_033" style="max-width: 96.125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_033.jpg" alt="" data-role="presentation">
+</figure>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_34">[Pg 34]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_III">
+    <span class="smcap">Chapter III.</span>
+    <br>
+    The Family Visit the Theatre.
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">In</span> the evening the family met together round the hotel tea-table. Peter
+and Tilly supplied the greater part of the conversation. All the fresh
+incidents and impressions they had to relate would alone have filled a
+book of fair dimensions. Old John himself was silent, and seemed in a
+melancholy mood. Mrs. Dashwood shared his reflective spirits, and sat
+as one over whom a cloud of gloom was resting heavily. At intervals,
+when appealed to to settle some point of difference, old John would
+grunt “h’m” or “hoh!”</p>
+
+<p>“Any letter from William to-day?” James, who harboured a suspicion that
+something had gone wrong away back at the farm, enquired of his parent.</p>
+
+<p>“Noh, noh; not to-day, lad, not to-day,” was the reply. And, leaning
+back in his chair old John seemed to become deeply absorbed in the
+senseless chatter, and the bowing and pawing of the bare-necked,
+white-fronted group of superior people who occupied the adjoining
+table. But in reality he neither heard nor saw one of them.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_35">[Pg 35]</span></p>
+
+<p>“How did you get on with Mr. Staunton, father; did you see him?” Peter
+asked abruptly.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Dashwood, who was already in her husband’s confidence as regards
+the day’s doings, turned her eyes sympathetically upon old John.</p>
+
+<p>Peter repeated the question, and the absent-minded parent came to his
+senses with a start.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah-h! oh! Ah-h yes; I seed him, lad!” he answered, clumsily striving
+to treat the question in his most natural way.</p>
+
+<p>“Father and Mr. Staunton had a good fly round together, I’ll be bound,”
+Tilly ventured, playfully, and added, with a deep sigh: “Oh, I’d just
+love to be a man in a big city!”</p>
+
+<p>Peter drained a glass of ginger-beer, and, setting the glass down,
+chuckled:</p>
+
+<p>“Yes; you’d make such a splendid man, you would, Til. Ha! ha! Remember
+when you put on James’s trousers?”</p>
+
+<p>Tilly scowled at her brother, and then choked back a giggle.</p>
+
+<p>“Sh!” Polly said, nudging Peter, “don’t let people hear you, you silly!”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, she might make a good enough man,” Maria growled, “for she ain’t
+such a great success at what she is, or someone would be wanting her
+before this.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_36">[Pg 36]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Well I won’t be afraid to refuse the first one that <i>does</i> come
+along lest I should never get another, Maria!” Tilly fired back, with
+blood in her cheeks.</p>
+
+<p>Just here a waiter, plying for custom, broke in on them.</p>
+
+<p>“No more for me,” old John said, and the rest of the family nodded
+their heads in the negative. The waiter bowed like a willow stick, and
+fluttered off on his rounds.</p>
+
+<p>“Are we going to th’ play to-night, father?” Peter asked, folding his
+serviette anyhow.</p>
+
+<p>Old John shook his head dismally and mumbled: “Ah-h dern’t know, lad!”
+and Tilly said she “guessed father would be going out somewhere with
+Mr. Staunton.”</p>
+
+<p>Old John stared pathetically at his daughter.</p>
+
+<p>“I think father has seen all he will ever want to see of Mr. Staunton,”
+Mrs. Dashwood remarked, meaningly.</p>
+
+<p>The family began to “smell a rat,” and looked hard and wonderingly at
+their downcast parent.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah! H’m!” murmured old John, and rising, once more led the way from
+the noisy, busy dining-room.</p>
+
+<p>They all ascended in the lift together, and, arriving at No. 2
+floor, collected in a circle at one end of the luxuriantly furnished
+sitting-room. Then by degrees, and in disjointed fragments, full
+particulars of the episode in which Will Staunton played such an
+interesting part were passed from one to the other, and feelingly
+discussed.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_37">[Pg 37]</span></p>
+
+<p>“And do you mean to say the old scoundrel was going to hit you with a
+chair, father?” James asked, with an angry frown on his face.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, Ah thenk he would ’a’ done, lad!” old John answered quietly.</p>
+
+<p>“And fancy that Willie Staunton pulling father down on the floor!”
+Tilly flared. “I could wring his neck!”</p>
+
+<p>Polly summed the Staunton family up as “a bad lot,” and reckoned they
+weren’t worth talking about.</p>
+
+<p>“Did you say as someone wer’ <i>shot</i>, my dear?” Granny enquired of
+Polly. But no one was in the humour to go into details in the interests
+of Granny.</p>
+
+<p>“By Xmas! I wish I’d been there!” Peter broke out, with fight in his
+eye. “I’d have settled mister Bill Staunton.”</p>
+
+<p>“It mighn’t be too late yet,” James remarked, with a quiet,
+no-confidence smile at his brother.</p>
+
+<p>“By Xmas I would!” Peter said louder.</p>
+
+<p>“It would be just as effective to-morrow,” James drawled advisedly.</p>
+
+<p>“No mistake I would!” Peter repeated.</p>
+
+<p>“We might come across him before we leave town,” James suggested
+knavishly.</p>
+
+<p>“Who th’ deuce is Bill Staunton, I’d like to know!” Peter stormed,
+unmindful of James.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_38">[Pg 38]</span></p>
+
+<p>James winked at Tilly.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, Peter,” Tilly said, “really, you just look as if you
+<i>would</i> hit somebody.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, well,” Maria growled, as she danced the baby up and down, “I’m
+glad it’s happened for my part; we won’t have to be bothered calling
+on them now, and they never did like to see anyone come with a baby to
+their place, anyway!”</p>
+
+<p>A porter, with his hair beautifully arranged for the evening, and a
+silver tray in his hand, entered the sitting-room and stared about from
+guest to guest.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Dashwood?” he said, addressing a sour, grizzled-featured,
+bald-headed old swell who sat by himself, scowling on all around him.</p>
+
+<p>The bald-headed one shook his head. Our friends all turned their faces
+towards the porter. “Ah-h, here,” cried old John, catching his eye. And
+those hotel porters <i>have</i> eyes! The reputation enjoyed by the
+Australian aboriginal for seeing things early is a fraud in comparison
+to the quickness of <i>their</i> vision.</p>
+
+<p>Gliding lightly and gracefully across the crowded room, the porter
+placed a card in old John’s hand.</p>
+
+<p>“The gentleman is waiting to see you down stairs, sir,” he said; “most
+important.”</p>
+
+<p>Old John stared at the card: Mrs. Dashwood stared at <span class="pagenum" id="Page_39">[Pg 39]</span>it; the whole
+family crowded round and stared at it.</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Robert Staunton, ah-h,” murmured old John.</p>
+
+<p>The family looked at each other.</p>
+
+<p>“Wants to see you?” said Peter.</p>
+
+<p>“Perhaps Will is with him,” James remarked; looking meaningly at Peter.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t you go, father; don’t you,” Polly and Tilly advised earnestly,
+and Mrs. Dashwood murmured: “Don’t mind him.”</p>
+
+<p>“What answer, sir?” from the porter, who was becoming restless.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, <i>noh</i>!” blustered old John; “Ah won’t see him.”</p>
+
+<p>“Tell him you’re not in, sir?” suggested the porter, from force of
+habit.</p>
+
+<p>“But Ah <i>em</i> in,” cried old John. “Yow tell him Ah dersent want to
+have ennerthin’ more to do with th’ lahkes o’ him.”</p>
+
+<p>The porter smiled. “Yessir,” he said, and glided off again.</p>
+
+<p>“Did yer ever hear th’ lahkes o’ thet!” said old John, tearing the card
+to pieces. “Noh! Ah’m done wi’ Robert Staunton. Ah’m done wi’ him.”</p>
+
+<p>For quite a while the family sat in silence.</p>
+
+<p>“Have you been to the theatre to hear ‘In Australia’ yet, Mr.
+Hall-Smith?” a female voice rang out across the room.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_40">[Pg 40]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Bai Jove! Ai reallay am ashamed Ai hev not, Miss Brown,” came the
+answer, “but Ai’m told it’s awfullay delightful.”</p>
+
+<p>“Terribly funnay,” from a second female. “We were there the naight His
+Excellency attended, and we literally screamed the whole taime.”</p>
+
+<p>Our friends from the country looked enquiringly into each other’s faces.</p>
+
+<p>“That’s where we should go to-night,” Peter said, and Polly and Tilly
+quickly approved of his suggestion.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Dashwood looked kindly at old John, and thought it would do him a
+world of good to go out for an hour or two and forget unpleasant things.</p>
+
+<p>Old John brooded on in silence a while longer; then, as though his
+senses had suddenly returned, said with a glow of enthusiasm:</p>
+
+<p>“Ah-h, why not; the whole lot on us. You too, Maria.”</p>
+
+<p>Polly and Tilly cast an anxious glance towards Maria, with a hope
+in their wildly-beating hearts that their married sister, with the
+squawking encumbrance, would elect to remain behind and take care of
+the hotel. But to their chagrin Maria was delighted with the idea.
+She hadn’t seen a play “since Joe Miller’s niggers performed in the
+goods-shed at Chatswood,” but they would have to wait until she “put<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_41"></a><a id="Page_42"></a><a id="Page_43"></a>[Pg 43]</span>
+another dress on the baby.” She went off and put another dress on the
+baby; also an extra pink ribbon or two on herself. And when all were
+ready Maria was curious to know if the baby would understand anything
+of the play. Polly nudged Tilly, and Tilly nudged Polly; then they all
+hurried down the stairs, dragging each other after them.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="at_the_theatre" style="max-width: 206.5em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_041.jpg" alt="" data-role="presentation">
+  <figcaption>
+    <span class="smcap">At the Theatre.</span>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The Company’s manager, the courteous “Goody,” smiled a droll sort of
+smile as he turned to watch the last of old John’s numerous party trail
+in at the door of the theatre.</p>
+
+<p>They were late. The play was in full swing when they entered, and
+the trouble they had to discover seats for themselves exasperated a
+section of the audience. City people take their “theatres” as they take
+themselves, seriously. They called upon the late comers to “sit down”
+before they could see where to sit, or what to sit on.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t yow be in a hurry,” old John called back to them. “We got plenty
+to sit on, but where to put it be th’ trouble.” This caused a laugh,
+which brought a number of people at distant parts of the house to their
+feet. They seemed to think the play had shifted venue and that they
+were missing some of it. Others then followed their stupid example till
+the whole audience, except those near by, were staring in the direction
+of our country friends.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_44">[Pg 44]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Why didn’t yer bring th’ plough with yer?” enquired a thin voice from
+a dark corner of the pit, and a burst of merriment rang out in that
+quarter. Finally, however, our friends all sank down out of sight. Then
+Granny, thinking she was at home on the farm, started to make more
+trouble. At the top of her wheezy voice she desired to know if Mrs.
+Dashwood was “quite comfortable,” and if she was “sitting in a draught.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, dry up!” came from the seat behind; and Polly and Tilly took
+Granny in hand to silence her. But they were up against a difficult
+proposition.</p>
+
+<p>“Have yow th’ little yun wrapped well up, my dear?” she enquired
+of Maria. Then Maria began a conversation with her on the amiable
+characteristics of the infant.</p>
+
+<p>“Order! Order!” commanded a number of angry people, and one was heard
+to growl: “They’ve come to the wrong shop; it’s at Dunwich they ought
+to be!”</p>
+
+<p>Tilly pinched Granny hard to suppress her, but only provoked her to
+loud remonstrance. She rebelled in a <span id="cor_44"></span>sharp, squeaky voice and addressed
+her grand-daughter in an incoherent sort of way.</p>
+
+<p>“Put them out!” came from away back in the pit, while a voice that
+seemed affected by a bad cold cried; “Sit on their chest!”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, ain’t it awful!” Tilly murmured to Polly, and old <span class="pagenum" id="Page_45">[Pg 45]</span>John at last
+shook Granny hard, and warned her to be silent, by holding up his big
+finger and shaking it close to her nose.</p>
+
+<p>Then Granny settled down, and the family fixed its eyes on the play.</p>
+
+<p>A bush scene was before them. An old selector in his shirt sleeves, and
+with large patches on his pants, was wildly haranguing his daughter
+into marrying the fellow for whom she had no love.</p>
+
+<p>“You’re mad—mad as a March hare,” he exclaimed. “Could you compare the
+two men, could you? Is there any comparison between them?”</p>
+
+<p>“No, there is not, father,” the girl answered, looking very love-sick
+and pretty, “Jim is poor, and hard-working and good-looking and honest,
+and—and—he <i>loves</i> me.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, and what is th’ <i>hother</i>?” yelled the boisterous
+match-making parent.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, well, he’s an Inspector of Police, father, that is all.”</p>
+
+<p>The old selector walked at racing-pace up and down the boards for
+several turns and threw his sledge-hammer fists wildly about before he
+spoke again.</p>
+
+<p>“That is all, eh?” he yelled. “Where’s his big screw, and his
+hinfluence in th’ country, eh? Ain’t he got them?” He walked up and
+down again, and, when he got tired, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_46">[Pg 46]</span>paused before the girl, and
+bellowed: “Damnation to it! are yer goin’ to have him—yes or <i>no</i>?”</p>
+
+<p>“<i>No</i>, a thousand times no, father!”</p>
+
+<p>“Then <i>damn</i> yer! yer’ll have to!” and off he went again in a
+canter.</p>
+
+<p>Just here the person involved, the uniformed Inspector himself, entered
+in a most unexpected sort of way.</p>
+
+<p>“God bless me, Inspector,” said the artful old selector, suddenly
+becoming as cheerful-looking as a bridal party, “it’s you, is it? Why,
+we was just talkin’ about you and sayin’ how long it is since you were
+here,” and he nearly wrung the official’s arms out.</p>
+
+<p>At this period of the performance Peter thought “it up to him” to have
+a laugh. And a man sitting in front of him who received the full blast
+of the mirth in his right ear looked round and said: “Steady, old man!”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, I hope I am not intruding,” spoke the brilliant Inspector, with
+one eye on the girl, “but an important case which I have in hand, in
+this locality brings me here at this late hour.” Here he gazed at the
+audience and sighed: “Ah, what a divine creature! If she will only be
+mine!” Then he faced the old selector’s daughter, and bowed profusely
+to her, and addressed her as “Kate,” and assured her of the pleasure it
+gave him to find her looking so cheerful and well. “Kate” bowed coldly
+and stiffly to him, and plunged <span class="pagenum" id="Page_47">[Pg 47]</span>a needle into a scrap of calico she
+was supposed to be sewing.</p>
+
+<p>“A case in this district, eh, Inspector?” the old selector said,
+fussing round.</p>
+
+<p>“Yes. Some rascals have been slaughtering Grey’s cattle for him, and
+doing it pretty clumsily, too, I can tell you.”</p>
+
+<p>“Yer don’t tell me,” gasped the old selector.</p>
+
+<p>“Quite true, confound them! We came across the head of one scratched
+out of the ground by the dingoes, and the tail of another in an old
+fire.”</p>
+
+<p>The old selector thought he saw some humour in it, and said:</p>
+
+<p>“Heads you win and tails they lose, eh, Inspector, ha! ha! ha!”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, win or lose, I’m making a house to house investigation and
+asking them all to turn out what hides they’ve got about their places.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, I’ll very soon show yer mine,” said the old selector, and off he
+bolted. <span id="cor_47"></span>At the door he paused and observed to the audience: “I’ll give
+them plenty of time ter themselves. That’s all he’s after.”</p>
+
+<p>Then, while the audience breathed heavily, the Inspector addressed
+himself affectionately to the daughter.</p>
+
+<p>“I hope she won’t have him!” Tilly murmured excitedly <span class="pagenum" id="Page_48">[Pg 48]</span>into Polly’s
+ear, and at the same moment something went wrong with Maria’s baby. It
+squealed without giving any warning of its intention, and Maria shook
+it, and “cooed” and crooned to it. “Sit on it!” cried a disagreeable
+individual. “Chuck it out!” another, with no sympathy for children,
+advised. Maria scowled all round like a lioness at bay, and said: “I’d
+like to see any of you try it!” A great number of silly people laughed,
+and Mrs. Dashwood pulled at Maria and told her to take no notice, which
+Maria did forthwith.</p>
+
+<p>“Why this silence, why are you so cold to me, Kate? Have you not one
+little word of love for me? Ah-h!” and the Inspector went through a
+series of tragic antics peculiar to people who love to excess. But
+it was no use. All the response he could extract from the girl was a
+long, far away sigh. The Inspector tugged at his sleeves and displayed
+symptoms of desperation.</p>
+
+<p>“Then you refuse my love?” he yelled in a violent outburst.</p>
+
+<p>Kate answered with a faint bow.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah-h-h! Then you love another?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, she loves another!” came unexpectedly from the hero of the play,
+who <span id="cor_48"></span>strolled in and calmly confronted the Inspector. “And what have you
+to say to him?”</p>
+
+<p>The official one was knocked all of a heap for a second or two.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_49">[Pg 49]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Jim!” gasped the girl, clutching at space.</p>
+
+<p>“Scoundrel!” yelled the disappointed Inspector, “who admitted you here?”</p>
+
+<p>Jim drew out and delivered the police his best punch, and knocked him
+longways across the sofa. Then, while the audience cheered and hurrayed
+and laughed, Jim took Kate in his big, hairy arms and hugged her. He
+enjoyed the hugging process so much, and kept to it so long, that the
+prostrate Inspector was given time to regain consciousness and to
+calmly consider what was best for him to do. He considered the best
+thing to do was to draw his revolver. And, notwithstanding that Peter
+called lustily to him to “look out,” Jim neglected to turn his head
+until requested in a triumphant voice by the Inspector to “leave this
+house or die the death of a villain!” When he did turn he found himself
+looking down the barrel of the regulation revolver.</p>
+
+<p>The audience clutched each other for support. Polly and Tilly closed
+their eyes. “Oh, my God!” Maria said, <span id="cor_49"></span>“he’s going to shoot!”</p>
+
+<p>Then the awful suspense was broken by Jim calmly spitting into the
+barrel, and defying the revolver to go off. A loud yell of delight rang
+out, and Jim spat into the barrel again. Then down went the curtain.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah-h, he’s a proper Hostralian, that cove!” old John observed, as he
+wiped the excitement from his brow with a handkerchief.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_50">[Pg 50]</span></p>
+
+<p>Then the light was turned full on, and a murmur of voices filled the
+house as the audience began to converse freely with itself.</p>
+
+<p>In the babel of tongues about our friends a female voice was heard to
+say, in a grievous way:</p>
+
+<p>“Fancy bringing a baby in arms to a theatre! How ridiculous!” Maria
+turned her head quickly and located the owner of that voice.</p>
+
+<p>The proprietor of it was a lady with a long, lean neck, and a bare,
+bony chest. She looked through a pair of gold-rimmed glasses that were
+secured to some part of her by a magnificent chain, and she sat up very
+straight and dignified behind a fan that would have made a peacock weep
+with envy.</p>
+
+<p>“If you had one like it,” Maria said, straight at her, “you’d bring it,
+too; but I don’t suppose you ever had one, or ever will,” and concluded
+by making an ugly face.</p>
+
+<p>The lady with the long, bare neck screened her blushing face behind the
+gorgeous fan, and whispered things into the ear of a male companion.
+Tilly and Polly both tugged at Maria, and threatened to leave and
+return to the hotel if she “went on like that any more.” Maria growled
+audibly to herself and hugged the precious infant closer to her bosom.</p>
+
+<p>“Chocolates here! One shilling a box!” cried a youthful vendor of
+sweets, pushing his way between the rows of seats.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_51">[Pg 51]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp54" id="marias_baby" style="max-width: 148.875em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_051.jpg" alt="" data-role="presentation">
+  <figcaption>
+    <span class="smcap">Maria’s Baby.</span>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_52"></a><a id="Page_53"></a>[Pg 53]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Got a shilling, father?” Peter whispered to his parent.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah-h!” answered old John, pushing his fist into his pocket.</p>
+
+<p>Peter beckoned the youth along, and plunged into the chocolates. Old
+John paid for them with a half sovereign.</p>
+
+<p>“She’s enjoyin’ herself, mister,” the chocolate boy said, with a grin
+at Granny. Old John glanced quickly at the aged one and discovered she
+was fast asleep.</p>
+
+<p>The boy laughed sociably.</p>
+
+<p>“Wake up, moother!” said old John, giving Granny a shake; “it’s going
+to begin agen now!”</p>
+
+<p>Granny declined to wake up.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t you disturb her, mister,” the boy said advisedly; “she won’t
+miss anythink!”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes; leave her, John,” Mrs. Dashwood urged; “she’ll be all right!”</p>
+
+<p>John left her, and the boy moved off without leaving any change.</p>
+
+<p>Then the curtain rose again, and showed to the world some more of the
+Australian bush. It was a wild, grand sort of scene. A mountain pass
+in all its ruggedness stood within several feet of the audience. Wild
+birds were calling and whistling and laughing among the mountains. A
+police constable and two black-trackers were pitching a camp at the
+mouth of the mountain pass. All their baggage and <span class="pagenum" id="Page_54">[Pg 54]</span>accoutrements lay
+about. The audience murmured in admiration.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s too bad to let her miss all on it,” old John said, and made
+another attempt to wake Granny. But the effort was futile.</p>
+
+<p>One of the black-trackers stared up into the foliage above his head,
+and said: “Moomoomby.” His brother tracker shook his woolly head,
+and contradicted him: “Baal, moomoomby,” he jabbered. “That pfellow
+petebroo.” Then they argued the point until the constable tossed an
+empty billy-can at their feet and hollered:</p>
+
+<p>“Shut ye’s jabbering jaw and go and fill that at the creek. Hurry
+up, or befure we have the tea ready the Inspector will be here, and
+there’ll be th’ divil to pay.”</p>
+
+<p>“You been fetch it, Charlie,” the first tracker grumbled, shunting the
+job on to his brother. “I been bring it water alonga dinner-time.”</p>
+
+<p>Charlie also demurred.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, by cripes,” he growled, “I been bring it water last night two
+times twice.”</p>
+
+<p>The audience laughed at the simple humour of its countrymen.</p>
+
+<p>“Go arn wid y’; the two of ye,” thundered the constable. “Y’ pair o’
+lazy divils. All ye’re good fer is stuffin’ ye’re skin, and shleepin’.
+And look here, when I think of ud: Let ye’s keep me awaake to-night the
+way <span class="pagenum" id="Page_55">[Pg 55]</span>ye’s did larst night wid ye’re snorin’ like pigs, and be my soul
+I’ll put a hot fire-stick up ye’re noshtrils!”</p>
+
+<p>Howls of delight from every part of the house.</p>
+
+<p>“You been do that,” said Charlie; “we couldn’t smell it no more to make
+it a livin’ for our missis, and we get it compersation then from it
+Labour Party.” (Yells of laughter from the “fat” section of the house.)</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, my word, yes,” Norman said, in confirmation, “we get it plenty
+pfellow compersation then all right for not bein’ able to smell it
+track no more,” and both niggers laughed and grimaced like children.</p>
+
+<p>“Shmell a thrack!” snarled the constable, “the only thrack ever I knew
+ye’s to shmell wer’ th’ thrack of a damper, or a lump o’ beef. Go arn
+wid ye’s and fetch the water, or I’ll kick ye’re ribs in!” and he aimed
+a place kick with his number ten at Charlie, which went wide of the
+mark. (More joy for the audience, during which Peter wriggled in a sort
+of fit across the knees of his parent and kicked Granny back into the
+land of the living again for several seconds.) Charlie started off,
+billy in hand, and, hanging over the edge of the stage while Norman
+held him by the two legs, dipped some water out of the creek.</p>
+
+<p>“Now, gather plenty o’ wood fer th’ night!” ordered the constable, “so
+as we won’t be scratchin’ about in th’ dark forrit, and be pickin’ up
+shnakes.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_56">[Pg 56]</span></p>
+
+<p>“By cripes!” gasped Charlie, suddenly becoming reminiscent, “I been
+pick it up two big pfellow snakes one night.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ye’s did, yer black divil! And what did ye’s do?”</p>
+
+<p>“By cripes, I been-jump it nearly into th’ plurry moon,” answered
+Charlie. And the laugh he raised would have emptied a hospital.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, be th’ saints above,” said the constable, “I wish ye’d pick one
+up now!”</p>
+
+<p>Charlie proceeded cautiously to collect wood. As he bent down Norman
+threw a stick, which fell at his feet. Charlie, with snakes on his
+mind, took fright. He bounded into the air like a piece of whalebone,
+then stared about suspiciously. The audience entered into the joke
+with enthusiasm. Satisfied nothing had attacked him Charlie continued
+to scrape up more wood. As he stooped again a snake of tremendous
+dimensions gradually lowered its length from the limbs above till its
+large head, with wide, open mouth, was within a foot of Charlie’s
+woolly head. (The audience started to get excited, while Norman
+fled at sight of the reptile and took refuge behind the constable.)
+Charlie filled his arms with sticks, then straightened up. His head
+bumped into the dangling boa-constrictor. He looked up quickly to see
+what was there. He saw what was there, and dropped his bundle to the
+accompaniment of <span class="pagenum" id="Page_57">[Pg 57]</span>an unearthly yell. The snake concluded the time was
+ripe to commence operations. It commenced by falling in a number of
+long, heavy coils upon Charlie, and winding itself around him. Talk
+about excitement! A wild, desperate struggle started off, and rolled
+itself several times across the stage. The audience began to kneel on
+each other’s shoulders.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t y’ think we had better get out of here, father?” Peter cried,
+with fright and frenzy in his rolling eyes. Old John didn’t hear him.</p>
+
+<p>The struggle for life on the one hand, and for a meal on the other,
+continued to roll across the stage. The constable seized a rifle, and,
+pointing it in the direction of the danger, sat prepared to defend
+himself. The snake coils slackened and Charlie slipped out into the
+fresh air. He lay full length on his stomach, exhausted. The snake
+struck a similar attitude. Their heads were near each other’s. They
+glared at each other. Charlie groaned. The snake opened its mouth.
+Charlie gazed far away into the recesses of its lengthy interior. He
+groaned more. (“Oh, we’d all better go; it’s going to swallow him!”
+came apprehensively from Maria). Something seemed to go wrong with the
+reptile internally. It suddenly developed several <span class="pagenum" id="Page_58">[Pg 58]</span>bulging compartments
+along its stomach. It was all stomach. It opened its mouth wider—still
+wider. It struggled, strained, wriggled and contorted; then a kangaroo
+rat jumped out of him, and raced for dear life across the stage.
+(Yells of surprise from the house.) Then “bang!” went the constable’s
+rifle and the rat fell just as it was in the act of jumping upon the
+orchestra. Such howls and yells and jeers as followed were never heard
+in any play house before. And before the people could calm themselves
+the snake let loose two half-bald old ’possums upon the evening. “Bang!
+bang!” from the constable’s rifle, and both ’possums lay shivering on
+their backs.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, damme!” said John Hop (popping more cartridges into the
+magazine) “if this ain’t th’ besht bit of spoort I’ve had since I jined
+the foorce!”</p>
+
+<p>Then the voice of Charlie was heard to call out in feeble pleading
+tones:</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, why you not been shoot it th’ plurry snake!”</p>
+
+<p>“I wud,” cried the constable, “but how do I know there isn’t a mahn in
+him, and twud be manslaughter!”</p>
+
+<p>But Mrs. Dashwood had reached the limit. She could stand no more of
+that play.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m going!” she said, rising; “I’m going. Some one will be shot, and
+it might be one of us!”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_59">[Pg 59]</span></p>
+
+<p>Maria, in the interests of her offspring, agreed with her mother.</p>
+
+<p>“Just as yer like,” old John said, and off they all went.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp75" id="i_059" style="max-width: 122.875em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_059.jpg" alt="" data-role="presentation">
+</figure>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_60">[Pg 60]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_IV">
+    <span class="smcap">Chapter IV.</span>
+    <br>
+    The Sheriff’s Faithful Man.
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">After</span> breakfast, old John, as he left the hotel alone, stood on the
+large stone steps for a moment or two, gazing in wonder at the volume
+of traffic that seemed to be ever and ever increasing. A well-fed,
+greasy, sleeky individual, accompanied by a lean, pallid person in
+a small straw hat and a large paper collar, and one who would have
+had difficulty in passing for anything other than what he was, an
+attorney’s overworked and underpaid office-hack, hung about the
+pavement, eyeing him closely.</p>
+
+<p>“Are you sure he’s the man?” the well-fed one murmured <i>sotto
+voce</i>, as he pulled some papers from his pocket, and examined them.</p>
+
+<p>“Sure? Absolutely,” replied the clerk. “I saw him as he left the boat
+yesterday. But don’t let him bluff you. Our principals say he is as
+cunning as a fox.”</p>
+
+<p>Old John descended slowly, and, as he reached the pavement, the greasy,
+sleeky man, who, of course, was none other than the boss bailiff of the
+State, smiled an oily smile, which <span class="pagenum" id="Page_61">[Pg 61]</span>was the most valuable part of his
+stock-in-trade, and accosting him, said:</p>
+
+<p>“Oh—er—Mister Brownloe, half a moment, please.”</p>
+
+<p>Old John paused and stared at them both.</p>
+
+<p>“You’ll excuse me, won’t you?” and the bailiff proceeded to grapple
+with a number of documents, which seemed to evade the touch of his fat
+fingers.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah’ll excuse yow,” answered old John, with a broad smile, “but Ah
+ain’t Mister Brownloe.”</p>
+
+<p>The bailiff laughed affably.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, we understand each other, Mister Brownloe,” he said. “It takes
+an old dog for a hard road, eh, Mister Brownloe?” and he laughed some
+more. “But if you won’t mind stepping round the corner for a moment
+where it will be more private, we——”</p>
+
+<p>“Dang you!” blurted old John indignantly. “What do I want to go round
+the corner with yow fer? Who be yow, eh?”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, really,” and the bailiff laughed pleasantly, “you’re about
+the hardest case I’ve met, Mister Brownloe, and I’ve met some queer
+ones—thousands of them. You know well enough” (producing a sealed
+document) “that I’ve got a warrant of <i>Ca. Re.</i> against you!
+Really I don’t know how you can take it so calmly,” and another
+pleasant ripple of official mirth came from him.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_62">[Pg 62]</span></p>
+
+<p>“A <i>w-what</i>!” cried old John.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, you <i>are</i> a caution,” pursued the hypocritical bum. “I’ll
+just read it to you:</p>
+
+<blockquote>
+<p>‘<i>To James Ballantyne, my Chief Bailiff, greeting:—By virtue of a
+writ of Capias ad Respondurdum to me directed, I command you that you
+take Robert Brox Brownloe if he be found in my bailiwick, and him
+safely keep until he shall have satisfied the sum of £850, which sum
+was ordered to be paid by the said Robert Brox Brownloe to William
+Smith, plaintiff in this suit, together with office fees, legal and
+incidental expenses, besides interest at the rate of £8 per centum
+per annum. Hereof fail not. William Thomas, Sheriff.</i>’”</p>
+</blockquote>
+
+<p>“What have all thet rigermarole got to do wi’ me?” exclaimed old John.
+“Ah ain’t Brownloe, or ennerone else; Ah’m John Dashwood. And look yow
+here, and just listen to me: Ah’ve heerd o’ your sort often enoof, so
+just yow get on abaht your business and doan’t interfere wi’ me else
+Ah’ll call a perleeceman and give the two on yow in charge.”</p>
+
+<p>The bailiff rubbed his hands, and laughed in a most friendly fashion.
+“Well, if you ain’t just the coolest fellow that ever I have come
+across in all my experience, Mr. Brownloe, and I can’t help but admire
+you. It’s a pleasure to meet a man like you. But, really, you know, and
+you mustn’t blame me or my friend Mr. Tomkins, here. I’ll <span class="pagenum" id="Page_63">[Pg 63]</span>make it as
+pleasant as I can for you, but you must consider yourself my prisoner
+until the sum is paid, together with the office fees.” He repeated
+“office fees” several times, and each time smiled most seductively,
+for that was where he himself came in. Then he placed his hand on old
+John’s shoulder to administer the legal official “touch,” without
+which, according to George the Fourth or someone of ancient descent,
+the “arrest” would not be good business.</p>
+
+<p>Old John side-stepped and, striking a Jack Johnson attitude, used
+threatening language.</p>
+
+<p>“Now really,” and the bailiff laughed once more, “you <i>are</i> a
+gallant old man, Mr. Brownloe, but I wouldn’t fight with you for a
+good deal, no, not me! Many a fellow you’ve knocked over, I know! But
+we musn’t waste too much time, for I’ve got to be back at the court at
+11.30, and here is a copy of the summons, and a copy of the judge’s
+order.” He calmly offered the documents to old John.</p>
+
+<p>Old John punched a hole in the judge’s order and danced on the summons;
+then invited his interviewers to stand up and be made chopping blocks
+of.</p>
+
+<p>The affable bum deemed it judicious to enter into further particulars.</p>
+
+<p>“Like a good fellow,” he said, in his best smoodging voice, “just
+listen to me, just listen to me for one minute, will you, Mister
+Brownloe?</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_64">[Pg 64]</span></p>
+
+<p>“I’m the sheriff’s chief officer” (he never encouraged the use of
+the term “bailiff” at all). “This gentleman”—turning to the sweated
+hack—“represents Messrs. Jones and Robertson, Town Agents for the
+Plaintiff’s Solicitor. Now, like the sensible man that I’m sure you
+must be, if you will only think the matter over one minute and just
+come along and see the sheriff it will save a lot of trouble. If you
+refuse, you know, I must only call a policeman, and oh! really, Mr.
+Brownloe, I wouldn’t like to cause a scene here, more for your sake
+than for my own.” And, gathering up the scattered documents, he tried
+old John with them once more.</p>
+
+<p>Old John took them in his hand and savagely tore them into many pieces.</p>
+
+<p>A look of horror filled the eyes of the astonished bum. He saw
+sacrilege and contempt of court written all over the scraps that were
+fluttering innocently away, and making off down the street.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, you bad old man!” he gasped. “Do you know what you’ve done, Mr.
+Brownloe?”</p>
+
+<p>“Ah knows what John Dashwood’s done,” was the answer, “he’s tore ’em
+up.”</p>
+
+<p>At this stage a stalwart policeman strolled along on the opposite side
+of the street.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp53" id="dealing_with_the_judges_orders" style="max-width: 148.6875em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_065.jpg" alt="" data-role="presentation">
+  <figcaption>
+    <span class="smcap">Dealing with the Judge’s Orders.</span>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>The bailiff hailed him by name. The bailiff was intimately<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_65"></a><a id="Page_66"></a><a id="Page_67"></a>[Pg 67]</span>
+acquainted with the police of the city; and the police of the city were
+acquainted with the chief bailiff of the State. John Hop, scenting
+trouble, puffed out his chest, and responded to the call.</p>
+
+<p>The bailiff explained the position to his contemporary in the law.</p>
+
+<p>The policeman frowned upon old John, and said in a voice of tremendous
+authority:</p>
+
+<p>“Now, get along wid Mister Ballantyne and pay ye’s debts!”</p>
+
+<p>Old John looked bewildered.</p>
+
+<p>“But, policeman, Ah’ve told him Ah dersen’t owe ennerone mooney. And
+mah name’s John Dashwood. Ah’m a farmer, coome here fer——”</p>
+
+<p>“Go arn! Go arn wid ye’s!” interrupted the policeman, “that’s an old
+yarn! Get awaay to th’ sheriff!”</p>
+
+<p>Old John began to see the matter was genuine and that further
+<span id="cor_67"></span>resistance was useless, and the humorous side of the situation started
+to strike him.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, if this doan’t beat all,” he said, with a broad smile, “an’ Ah
+coomed here to th’ city wi’ mah wife fer a holeeday——”</p>
+
+<p>“An’ ye’ll get it, Oi’m thinkin’,” grinned the bobbie, “though Oi
+wudn’t say ye’ll spend it wid your wife.”</p>
+
+<p>The bailiff smiled pleasantly again, and addressed old John:</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_68">[Pg 68]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Well, shall we take a cab and drive down, Mr. Brownloe?”</p>
+
+<p>“Takes whatever yow likes, seems to me,” and old John laughed. “Ah
+dersen’t seem to have mooch say in it atween th’ lot on yow.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, you won’t be kept long, I’m sure of that,” said the cheerful
+bailiff. “You’ve got a pretty long cheque book. Oh, I’ll bet you have
+Mister Brownloe!” and, clapping old John affectionately on the back,
+added: “Come along; come along!”</p>
+
+<p>Old John went along, and the cabman scarcely pulled rein till he drew
+up at the large front door of the Supreme Court.</p>
+
+<p>It was a busy morning at the court. The criminal sittings were to
+open at ten o’clock. The calendar was a heavy one. It was full of
+charges of murder, burglary, forgery, bigamy, robbery, horsestealing,
+and attempted suicide. Officials of the court—registrars, deputy
+registrars, associates, tipstaffs, chief clerks, first clerks, ordinary
+common barn door clerks, messengers, bailiffs, assistant bailiffs,
+bum-bailiffs and sundry other servants of the Crown were running here
+and there with books and papers in their hands, and an air of great
+importance on their faces. It was one of the red letter days of the
+court, and a great day for the officials. They bounded up the broad
+staircase that <span class="pagenum" id="Page_69">[Pg 69]</span>led to the temple of justice like kangaroos ascending
+the wall of a range, and bounded down it again. Along the main corridor
+of the building moved a stream of humanity which included all sorts
+and conditions of people—people with money and position, people with
+neither; people with ambition, people without any; people fresh from
+the university, people who had never heard of such an institution;
+people who preached the gospel of Christ, people who picked pockets.
+And mingled with the mob were lawyers laden with bundles of papers
+tied with green tape; pressmen trailing walking sticks after them;
+doctors in gold-rimmed spectacles; inspectors of police in uniform;
+jurymen, lost and helpless looking, enquiring of others where they
+were to go; witnesses making similar enquiries; the downcast father,
+the broken-hearted mother of an unfortunate son on trial; then last
+but by no means least, quite a small army of clean-shaven gentlemen
+wearing long black gowns that flogged their heels, and crowns of
+horse-hair, with idiotic “pumpkin” curls dangling to them, swaggered
+along as though their absurdly-decorated heads contained all the brains
+of the world. In their hands they carried, by way of advertisement,
+imposing-looking volumes of the law. And from out this profane medley
+of humanity old John emerged at the sheriff’s office. The bailiff
+opened a door which had printed upon it in large ornamental letters:
+“Chief Bailiff,” <span class="pagenum" id="Page_70">[Pg 70]</span>and invited his prisoner to take a chair and make
+himself comfortable and happy. Removing his coat, which he brushed
+carefully, he washed his hands and face and combed his hair and
+whiskers. Then, after considering himself in a shabby little mirror,
+which he extracted from a cedar press, he looked at his watch, <span id="cor_70"></span>a
+Waterbury, secured to his vest by a magnificent brass chain.</p>
+
+<p>Old John sat and stared about the room. It was a cold, dingy-looking
+crib, that deserved to be tenanted by a bailiff. The kalsomined
+walls were as bare as blazes and disfigured with blobs of grease and
+ink-splashes and pencil writings of every hue. A photo. print of the
+Attorney General of the day, cut from the morning newspaper, was pasted
+over the fire-place. It was pasted there in the hope that the original
+of it might look in one day and, seeing it, decide upon giving the
+bailiff a rise of screw for his devotion and loyalty. The bailiff
+learnt this wrinkle from his under-secretary, an imported cuss who, by
+similar servility, achieved the sensational act of scaling the walls of
+the service in a pair of policeman’s boots.</p>
+
+<p>No covering was upon the floor, but the presence of stained borders and
+a number of battered tacks bore testimony that it had been carpeted,
+before the bailiff entered into possession of it. “Higher officials”
+have no respect for the comforts of a bailiff, except when their tailor
+issues a writ <span class="pagenum" id="Page_71">[Pg 71]</span>against them. And then, but only then, they weep on his
+neck and hold his hand in a brotherly way.</p>
+
+<p>Standing stolidly in the centre of the room was a large pine table,
+on which stood three glass ink-bottles labelled “red,” “black,” and
+“purple” respectively, a grimy old tumbler half filled with dirty shot,
+a wonderful variety of pens and pencils, sufficient to set up a country
+school, and a large quantity of foolscap, some of it torn, some of it
+scribbled on, some envelopes of all lengths and shapes, and blank,
+printed forms galore, some headed in large type: “Jury Summons”; some
+“Warrant on Ca Re”; some “Warrant on Ca Sa”; some “Warrant on Ha Fa”;
+some “Warrant on Fi Fa”; and some more “Instructions to Bailiffs.”</p>
+
+<p>And it was all chucked about in any order, and no order at all.</p>
+
+<p>Before this jumble of stationery the bailiff calmly seated himself in
+a heavy chair, the legs of which scratched channels in the floor when
+he dragged it under him, and proceeded to arrange the papers “Smith
+<i>v.</i> Brownloe.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, now, Mr. Brownloe,” he said, turning to our patient friend with
+a winning smile, “before we go in and see the sheriff I’ll just endorse
+the warrant with your answers. You refuse to pay me this £850 because
+you say you are not the defendant mentioned in the warrant. Is that so,
+Mr. Brownloe?”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_72">[Pg 72]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Just as Ah told yow afore,” answered old John.</p>
+
+<p>The bailiff nodded, and proceeded to write things on the back of
+the warrant. When he had finished his face assumed a serious,
+saintly expression, a habit he had acquired from long practice as a
+lay-preacher.</p>
+
+<p>“Of course you know, Mr. Brownloe,” he said, rubbing his hands
+together, “and I only mention the matter now in your interests, you
+know, entirely in your own interests, and you’re a man I can’t help
+respecting, really I can’t; in fact I’ve taken quite a fancy to you in
+the short time that we’ve known each other, so I have, and what I would
+impress on you to be really very careful about is that the plaintiff’s
+solicitors, you know, will fight this matter to the bitter end, and if
+it should turn out after all that you really <i>are</i> the defendant
+mentioned, my word, then I wouldn’t like to be in your shoes, Mr.
+Brownloe, oh, not for thousands, not for all the gold in Australia”;
+and the bailiff opened his eyes and shook his head gloomily. Then,
+breaking into a friendly laugh. “Oh, I fancy I can see you in that box
+upstairs with Mr. Bumpkins, the barrister, at you! Besides,” he added,
+“you would have to stump up a lot more then than it will cost you now.
+Even my own costs would be ever so much greater. They don’t come to
+very much just yet. Let me see” (makes a calculation), “yes, only five
+pounds ten, including cab fare. But just think for a moment what the
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_73">[Pg 73]</span>solicitors’ costs would come to” (here he leaned back and laughed
+loud). “I don’t suppose anyone in this world, Mr. Brownloe, could say
+what <i>they</i> would come to.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, all that’s got nothing to do wi’ me!” old John answered,
+shortly; and the bailiff lost hope.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, you <i>are</i> a determined man, Mr. Brownloe,” he said. “I
+<i>do</i> admire you for it,” and jumping up he opened a small trap
+window in the thick brick wall and looked out upon a nest of clerks
+assembled in the next room, munching fruit.</p>
+
+<p>“Ha! ha! ha!” he laughed. “Did I give you a fright, Mr. Maypole?”</p>
+
+<p>“I thought you were that rotter of an under-secretary spying round
+again!” a voice was heard to say, which was followed by a burst of
+clerical laughter, and a large banana that whizzed through at the
+bailiffs beard.</p>
+
+<p>The bailiff closed the trap window with a loud bang, and stood
+listening to things rapping the other side of it that sounded like
+hail-stones pelting a roof.</p>
+
+<p>“They’re such awful beggars in there,” he said to old John, “for
+playing jokes. Oh, dear me, I <i>would</i> enjoy myself if the
+under-secretary were to pop in here just now and open this window. He
+<i>would</i> get such a one in the eye!”</p>
+
+<p>“Ah-h,” remarked old John; “who be he?”</p>
+
+<p>“Who <i>is</i> he!” and the bailiff looked as though amazed to
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_74">[Pg 74]</span>find that any person living did not know that exalted being, the
+under-secretary!</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, he’s the head of the department—the head of us all.”</p>
+
+<p>Cautiously he opened the trap window again, and, finding the clerks had
+settled down to work, called out:</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Maypole, is the sheriff in his office do you know?”</p>
+
+<p>“Yes, I suppose so,” came the answer, “if he’s not gone into court.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, look here, Mr. Maypole, I’ve Mr. Brownloe with me, and I must
+see the sheriff most urgently.” Then, catching Mr. Maypole’s eye, the
+bailiff winked a wink, the meaning of which was perfectly understood by
+the gentleman, at the head of the clerks’ quarters.</p>
+
+<p>The bailiff seated himself at his table again and commenced writing at
+a wonderful rate of speed.</p>
+
+<p>Next moment Mr. Maypole, with a pile of papers in his hand that might
+have referred to all the matters in the department for ought he knew
+at the moment, entered the room, and, as an excuse for his appearance,
+asked a fictitious question about the service of a jury summons.</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll tell you all about it in two minutes, Mr. Maypole, if you just
+sit down for a while,” answered the busy bailiff; “I want to catch the
+sheriff first, before he goes into court,” and, rising, he rushed off
+to capture his boss.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_75">[Pg 75]</span></p>
+
+<p>And Mr. Maypole, the clerk, was left in charge of the prisoner, which,
+of course, was the object of his entering the room. From behind the
+folds of a closely-written document, which he pretended to study very
+hard, he started to stare curiously at old John. Old John took little
+or no notice of Mr. Maypole. Old John was lost in meditation. Mr.
+Maypole went red in the face. He smiled a little; then, taking his eyes
+off the prisoner, he rose quickly and referred to defendant’s name in
+the official documents lying on the bailiff’s table.</p>
+
+<p>Looking up at old John, he asked, with a broad smile:</p>
+
+<p>“Your name is not Brownloe, is it?”</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” old John answered slowly, “Ah can’t get this gentleman yere to
+believe as it ain’t, and that’s why Ah’m yere.”</p>
+
+<p>“You’re Mr. Dashwood, ain’t you, from Fairfield?” this with a broad
+grin of proud recognition.</p>
+
+<p>Old John gave a start, and stared at Mr. Maypole.</p>
+
+<p>“Do you know me, then?” he cried, the light of joy rushing to his eye.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, yes, I ought to know you,” with a continuation of the grin of
+recognition, “I’m Jim Maypole, Mr. Dashwood.”</p>
+
+<p>Old John gave a bigger start.</p>
+
+<p>“Why bless my ’eart, where wer’ me eyes! Yower <span class="pagenum" id="Page_76">[Pg 76]</span>father’s place be just
+next to mine. Hoh! hoh! lord yes, why yower th’ one as we used to call
+little Jimmy, an yow went to school wi’ my James!” And old John nearly
+shook the clerk’s arm out of joint.</p>
+
+<p>“I was over at your place last Christmas,” said he, “when on a holiday.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, don’t Ah remember,” gushed old John, “but you’ve growed lad;
+you’ve growed.”</p>
+
+<p>“And what the deuce are you doing here on this matter?” asked Mr.
+Maypole; pointing to the official documents.</p>
+
+<p>All old John’s good humour had returned to him.</p>
+
+<p>“Hoh! hoh! hoh!” he laughed, “this man yere” (meaning the bailiff) “and
+a policeman, and another fellow as left us dahn th’ street, and a cab
+wi’ two grey horses in it fetched me here, Jimmy.”</p>
+
+<p>“Jimmy” laughed.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah-h,” went on old John, “and the missus and Granmoother and all of
+’em don’t know where I are.”</p>
+
+<p>“What! are they all down with you?” cried the clerk.</p>
+
+<p>“All on ’em were inside the poob when Ah were collared ahtside!”</p>
+
+<p>The clerk saw the humour of the situation and broke into mirth.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah-h,” continued old John, “and them wer’ sure my <span class="pagenum" id="Page_77">[Pg 77]</span>name was Brownloe
+or summit, and ’em only asks me to pay eight oondered for th’ tahtle,
+Jimmy.”</p>
+
+<p>Jimmy had to hold his sides. And old John rocked about in the chair.</p>
+
+<p>Their enjoyment was interrupted by the hurried entrance of the excited
+bailiff.</p>
+
+<p>“I’m awfully sorry, Mr. Brownloe,” he gasped, “I really must apologise,
+but the sheriff has gone into court and——”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, <i>you</i> are a chump, Ballantyne!” the clerk said, wiping the
+tears from his eyes, “this is not <i>Brownloe</i>, this is Mr. Dashwood
+from Fairfield, an old friend of my father’s, and I’ve known him since
+I was a kiddy.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ah knowed Jimmy yere,” old John laughed, “since he wer’ in napkins!”</p>
+
+<p>The bailiff went white, and sunk backward against the closed door.</p>
+
+<p>“Our nearest neighbour for years,” added the clerk. “How on earth did
+you come to make such a bloomer?”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I can’t be blamed! I can’t! I can’t! It’s not my mistake. Oh, that
+awful fool of a clerk that Jones and Robertson sent to point him out!”
+and the bailiff showed symptoms of becoming seriously ill.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Maypole stood and grinned.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, dear, this is awful!” whined the bailiff. “Oh, <i>do</i> <span class="pagenum" id="Page_78">[Pg 78]</span>ring up
+Jones and Robertson like a good fellow and ask one of the firm to come
+up at once! I’m too unnerved to do anything myself. Oh, there will be
+trouble over this! Oh, let me have a drink of water!”</p>
+
+<p>“That last case of wrongful arrest,” remarked the clerk maliciously,
+“cost the office what, about nine hundred pounds, and two men their
+billets.”</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, <i>do</i> ring up the solicitors!” cried the miserable bailiff,
+while his knees rattled together like the hangman’s when on duty.</p>
+
+<p>The clerk rang up Jones and Robertson, and, after answering several
+questions, and chuckling cheerfully into the machine, turned and said:</p>
+
+<p>“Mr. Jones is coming himself, and is bringing along a gentleman who
+knows the defendant Brownloe well.”</p>
+
+<p>The bailiff attempted to make a grateful response, but lost control of
+his bottom jaw. “R-r-r-r-r-r R-r-r-r-r!” went his teeth, as though set
+in motion by intense cold.</p>
+
+<p>Old John, taking compassion upon him, assured the bailiff that so far
+as he “wer’ concerned no harm wer’ done.”</p>
+
+<p>The bailiff pulled himself together, and paced restlessly about the
+room.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly a messenger, out of breath, burst into the room, and gasped
+out that William James, a juror, had failed to answer when his name was
+called, and that the <span class="pagenum" id="Page_79">[Pg 79]</span>judge was in a terrible rage, and the sheriff in
+a blue funk. “You’re to come up to court at once Mr. Ballantyne,” he
+concluded, in a shout, and rushed away again.</p>
+
+<p>The poor bailiff! He collapsed again. “Oh, my heavens!” he moaned, “oh,
+my stars!” and placed his hands to his head.</p>
+
+<p>But just then the clatter of shoe leather was heard racing up the
+corridor and the form of the absent juror streaked past the open door.</p>
+
+<p>“There he is!” shrieked the bailiff, “there’s Mr. James!” and he
+bounded out in pursuit. Next moment he was hanging round the juryman’s
+neck beseeching him in the name of heaven, in the name of himself, in
+the name of the judge, to hurry into court.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, to th’ devil with th’ judge! My watch just makes it five minutes
+past ten!” growled Mr. James, and on he trotted.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, what a blessing he’s come!” sighed the bailiff, returning to his
+table and mopping the perspiration from his brow. “I needn’t go up now!
+Oh, there will be a row when he goes in!”</p>
+
+<p>And there <i>was</i> a row! In less than three minutes juror James came
+rushing back to the bailiff’s room.</p>
+
+<p>“Where’s your telephone?” he roared, angrily. “That infernal old dog up
+there has fined me ten pounds! But I’ll show him if I’ll pay or not!”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_80">[Pg 80]</span></p>
+
+<p>He turned the handle of the machine with great violence.</p>
+
+<p>“Give me the Attorney General!” he shouted “Confound it, are you
+deaf! The <i>Attorney General</i>! No, d— it! I don’t want your
+under-secretary. I want to speak to Mr. McBrown himself! Eh? Mr. James
+of James and Black speaking!”</p>
+
+<p>The clerk looked across at the bailiff; the bailiff looked across at
+the clerk.</p>
+
+<p>“Is that Mr. McBrown?” continued juror James. “Oh, how are you, Dan.
+Look here, Dan, I’m in trouble. I was five minutes late on the jury
+just now—and the common jury, no less—and this old barbarian that you
+keep on the bench here fined me ten pounds!”</p>
+
+<p>There was a silence, during which the conversation was conducted by
+“Dan,” the Attorney General.</p>
+
+<p>Then juror James began again:</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, right you are, Dan,” he said, “I’ll come round and see you right
+away!” and, dropping the ’phone he winked triumphantly at the bailiff
+and hurried away.</p>
+
+<p>“That’s strong, if you like!” remarked the clerk.</p>
+
+<p>The bailiff chuckled.</p>
+
+<p>“Catch Mr. James paying a fine,” he said; “not while he’s one of Mr.
+McBrown’s chief political supporters!”</p>
+
+<p>“And they say the course of justice is never interfered with in
+Australia!” remarked the clerk again.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_81">[Pg 81]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Oh, <i>never</i>!” said the bailiff, with a broad smile; “never!
+never! <i>never</i>!”</p>
+
+<p>And the incident had hardly closed when Mr. Jones, of Jones and
+Robertson, accompanied by the gentleman acquainted with defendant
+Brownloe, arrived.</p>
+
+<p>One glance at old John satisfied the said gentleman. He turned to the
+lawyer and shook his head in the negative. The lawyer flew off the
+handle.</p>
+
+<p>“Have you arrested this gentleman as the defendant?” he asked, in
+scornful tones of the bailiff.</p>
+
+<p>The bailiff fairly trembled.</p>
+
+<p>“Your clerk pointed him out, Mr. Jones, and I couldn’t——”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t know anything about what our clerk did!” interrupted the
+lawyer, “but I presume the sheriff’s office knows its business, and if
+it is pleased to arrest the first man it meets in the street, while the
+real defendant is allowed to escape by its neglect, then of course it
+must put up with the consequences. We want that writ against Brownloe
+executed, Mr. Ballantyne,” and the lawyer, with his companion, turned
+and left.</p>
+
+<p>A cold shiver came over the bailiff and he <span id="cor_81"></span>sunk in a limp heap into his
+chair.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, Ah suppose they don’t want me any more, Jimmy?” old John said,
+addressing the clerk.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_82">[Pg 82]</span></p>
+
+<p>“No, Mr. Dashwood,” the clerk answered, “not unless you are going to
+issue a writ against the office for wrongful arrest!”</p>
+
+<p>Old John shook his head contemptuously, and held out his hand to say
+good-bye.</p>
+
+<p>“Good-bye, Mr. Dashwood,” the clerk said, “but you ought to go up and
+spend half an hour in the court now that you are here. You might hear
+something amusing up there.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ah-h,” said old John, falling in with the idea, “an’ which way do yow
+go, Jimmy, to get in there?”</p>
+
+<p>“Just round the corner of the passage, here, Mr. Dashwood,” answered
+the clerk, pointing out through the door. “The stairs are there on your
+right; you can’t miss them. Just go up them and you’ll see a crowd of
+people hanging about the door. Go right in; but I don’t think you’ll be
+able to get a seat.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ah, well, Ah don’t soopose they’ll hang me,” answered old John
+cheerfully, and, shaking hands with Jimmy again, added: “Ah’ll tell
+father as how Ah saw yow when we goes back to Fairfield.” And off he
+rocked in search of the court-room.</p>
+
+<p>The mouth of another wide corridor leading to the judges’ private
+chambers was all that caught old John’s eye, and down that dull and
+gloomy corridor he fearlessly <span class="pagenum" id="Page_83">[Pg 83]</span>stalked. At the bottom of it be found a
+staircase, a narrow staircase, sacred to the use of judges only, and by
+which their Honours always ascended to the bench. For any other court
+official to make use of that staircase was a felony!</p>
+
+<p>Without a moment’s thought or hesitation old John mounted those stairs
+and, with the clumsiness of an elephant, up he climbed, step after
+step, until finally and suddenly he landed on a Brussels carpet and
+stood in full gaze of the crowded court-room and the bar, and within
+a kick of the sheriff and the gorgeously-gowned and heavily-wigged
+judge. Oh, horror! Had the Kelly Gang, armed to the teeth and with
+its hat and armour on, arrived on the bench by those stairs at that
+moment the court and spectators could not have looked more staggered or
+astonished. The hair on the head of every policeman reared up on its
+end, and their mouths opened like caves. The crown prosecutor, in the
+middle of his address to the jury, shut up like a shop, and stared as
+though the ghost of all his past sins had suddenly risen up before him.
+The judge, hearing something grunt behind him as old John negotiated
+the last step, swung half way round in his chair, and, suddenly
+crouching low as one in the act of dodging a revolver shot, held up his
+bejewelled hands as if silently imploring mercy. The sheriff, whose
+duty it was to protect the person of His Honour, even at the sacrifice
+of his own life rose to the occasion. The <span class="pagenum" id="Page_84">[Pg 84]</span>sheriff had been a military
+man, and was no coward. In fact it was the one opportunity he had often
+longed for through his long, sleepy official career. But before he
+could grapple with the intruder the latter had disappeared down the
+stairs again. The sheriff disappeared in pursuit. Then there was a
+commotion! Every policeman, plain and fancy, every official in court
+rushed out by the front way and threw himself down the broad staircase
+in order to intercept the offender before he could reach the street.
+Arriving at the ground floor they encountered the sheriff in tow with
+the runaway. The former had a pleasant smile on his face, and old John
+was waving his large hands about and making loud efforts to explain
+that he had merely wandered up the stairs to see how the court managed
+its affairs. “Jimmy Maypole,” he said, “told me the way, but Ah moost
+have made a mistake.” Along with a score more excited-looking clerks
+Mr. Maypole came skipping along to witness the fun. He got a surprise
+when he found it was his friend Mr. Dashwood who was the cause of the
+trouble. And the truth of the situation dawned on him at once.</p>
+
+<p>“Why,” he said, pushing his way through the crowd to the side of old
+John, “you must have taken the wrong stairs, Mr. Dashwood!”</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp53" id="in_the_wrong_box" style="max-width: 147.6875em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_085.jpg" alt="" data-role="presentation">
+  <figcaption>
+    <span class="smcap">In the Wrong Box.</span>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>The sheriff didn’t want any further explanation. “Merely a mistake,” he
+said, smiling pleasantly upon old <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_85"></a><a id="Page_86"></a>[Pg 86]</span>John and the police. Then he left
+and returned to court to console His Honour.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, Jimmy,” said old John, addressing Mr. Maypole once more. “Ah
+thinks Ah better get out o’ this yere city an’ be off back to th’ farm
+afore Ah gets into more trouble.”</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp50" id="i_086" style="max-width: 68.875em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_086.jpg" alt="" data-role="presentation">
+</figure>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_87">[Pg 87]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_V">
+    <span class="smcap">Chapter V.</span>
+    <br>
+    A Leading Barrister.
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">While</span> the rest of his family preferred the pleasures of a Melba
+concert, held in the Town Hall, old John chose to spend the evening
+with an old friend, who, with his family, resided far out in the
+suburbs, and who, like old John himself, possessed an overweaning
+predilection for draught playing. These two old fogies pored over the
+board until such a late hour that old John narrowly escaped missing
+the last tram back to town. And before half the sections had been
+traversed he was the one solitary occupant of the car, and the only
+passenger left to alight at the terminus. Prompted no doubt by the
+glad feeling of having at last finished for “the day,” the conductor
+called out a cheerful “good-night” as our quaint friend crept down
+off the footboard. Old John paused for a moment to study the lay of
+the town, then directed his footsteps for the hotel. The smellsome
+street was dark, and dull, and empty. Not a sound, save the echo of
+his own footsteps ringing out on the hard, hollow pavements, pervaded
+it. The crowds of jostling <span class="pagenum" id="Page_88">[Pg 88]</span>people had gone; all the theatre-goers had
+long since wended their way to their homes and lodging places; street
+singers, cheap jacks, and beggars had departed; the sin and vice of the
+city that was usually flaunting round in paint and powder and all the
+alluring colours of the rainbow had disappeared as completely as though
+swallowed by an earthquake. A light, drizzling rain was falling, and
+wretchedness and misery seemed to hang like a shroud over the dazzling
+city. A few lights still flickered afar out on the silent, ghostly
+waters of the dark and distant harbour. Mayhaps, in the absence of the
+great shop illuminations, the pallid gas-lamps holding sentry at the
+street corners burned brighter than they were wont to do.</p>
+
+<p>A night-porter unbolted the large front door of the hotel with grating
+noise, and with a series of bows and succulent smiles admitted old John.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah’m late, eh?” he said, apologetically.</p>
+
+<p>The porter smiled some more.</p>
+
+<p>“Not the latest, though, sir,” he answered, in a consoling tone of
+voice. “There’s any amount more to come after you.”</p>
+
+<p>“What, to-naht?” and old John looked surprised.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I don’t know about to-night, sir,” with a significant grin, “some
+of them generally turn up about morning.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_89">[Pg 89]</span></p>
+
+<p>He bolted the door again, and old John peregrinated in the direction of
+the elevator. A light was burning in the hotel office. Two gentlemen
+were leaning on the bottom half of the double door that guarded it,
+conversing volubly. One had been to the theatre and still wore his
+dress suit, and a large diamond stud shone in the centre of his
+starched shirt like the morning star. The other wore a long top-coat,
+buttoned all the way down, beneath which a pair of carpet slippers
+protruded. A couple of empty glasses stood before them, resting on the
+door ledge.</p>
+
+<p>The one in the long coat and carpet slippers greeted old John
+boisterously.</p>
+
+<p>“Hello!” he cried, “this is a nice hour for a respectable married man
+to come in!”</p>
+
+<p>Old John, who had made the gentleman’s acquaintance during the course
+of numerous quiet chats in the smoking-room, laughed, and said:</p>
+
+<p>“Ah-h, but that be th’ pot calling th’ kettle black. Why ain’t
+<i>yow</i> in bed?”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, I was,” answered the other in extenuation, and throwing open
+his top-coat displayed a suit of gaudy pyjamas, “but my friend, here,
+dragged me out to come down and have a drink with him. Let me introduce
+you” (turning to his friend). “Mr. Dashwood, one of our wealthiest
+and most successful farmers. Mr. Portland, Mr. Dashwood; <span class="pagenum" id="Page_90">[Pg 90]</span>one of our
+country’s brightest barristers. In fact, I might say the brightest
+counsel in the Commonwealth. I suppose you’ve heard of him.”</p>
+
+<p>Old John had heard of barrister Portland, and proceeded to make a
+great mouthful of the circumstance. He was overjoyed at making the
+acquaintance of such a noted person.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh! Ah-h! Mah word!” he exclaimed, seizing hold of the great counsel’s
+extended hand, “Ah wer’ on th’ jury once, when yow were defenden th’
+presoners.”</p>
+
+<p>Barrister Portland’s eye began to sparkle with the glow of professional
+pride.</p>
+
+<p>“Indeed,” he said; “when was that, Mr. Dashwood?”</p>
+
+<p>Old John gave him the day and date, and the name of the presiding
+judge, and those of the prisoners, with a few remarks thrown in on the
+personal inconvenience he himself underwent during a busy harvest time
+to attend the assizes.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Portland remembered the sittings, and all its attendant
+circumstances and triumphs perfectly.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp53" id="one_in_the_morning" style="max-width: 147.3125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_091.jpg" alt="" data-role="presentation">
+  <figcaption>
+    <span class="smcap">One in the Morning.</span>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>“Oh, by Jove, yes,” he observed, turning with enthusiasm to his
+long-coated companion. “I defended six prisoners that day, Murphy,
+five of them as d— scoundrels as ever looked a judge in the eye. The
+other was a harmless poor devil of a nigger, who seemed to regard
+his trial for murder as a sort of bora ceremony. In fact, I had an
+idea all<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_91"></a><a id="Page_92"></a><a id="Page_93"></a>[Pg 93]</span> the time that he thought we were marrying him to a nice
+little gin, and that I was there simply acting as best man, and old
+Judge Browser tying the knot.” (Here Murphy laughed heartily.) “Well
+the five d— scoundrels, I might tell you, that I reckoned on having a
+devil of a fight for, I got off without turning a hair. ‘Not guilty,’
+said the jury” (here Mr. Portland laughed himself). “But to my utter
+astonishment your friend here” (smiling at old John) “and his brother
+jurymen put the rope round the poor unfortunate nigger’s neck without
+leaving the box.” Then, addressing old John: “I could never understand
+that verdict, Mr. Dashwood!”</p>
+
+<p>“Ah, well, yow see,” answered old John, “we let five on ’em go, an’ it
+would a looked bad to let ’em all off!”</p>
+
+<p>“Ah! and so you hanged the nigger for preference!” said Mr. Portland.
+“Well, that’s candid, and it shows that there are occasions in
+Australia when a nigger is chosen for a job before a white man.” Then
+turning to the night-porter, who stood behind the office door listening
+to the conversation with a broad smile on his clean-shaven, flinty
+face: “Fill those up again. What are you going to drink, Mr. Dashwood?”</p>
+
+<p>Old John hesitated.</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” he drawled, “Ah dersent drink but very little as a rule.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_94">[Pg 94]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Well, you are going to break the rule this time,” insistently from the
+great barrister. “You see, Mr. Dashwood,” he added, “I don’t know when
+I might have you on one of my juries again.”</p>
+
+<p>“Ah, well, a little port wine,” said old John to the porter.</p>
+
+<p>The three glasses being filled, they drank to each other’s health,
+wealth and continued prosperity. Then the leading counsel of the
+Commonwealth, who had accounted for numerous drinks during the
+evening, talked with increased volubility, and grew reminiscent of
+his Bar experiences. With a profundity and fluency that was amazing
+he poured forth anecdote after anecdote, recounted stories of the
+various judges that would have made their Honours blush to hear, and
+related sensational instances of juries being bribed and intimidated.
+He mimicked the mannerisms and styles of speech that characterised his
+less successful brothers at the Bar, till his friend Murphy, the porter
+behind the “door,” and old John were forced to hold their sides in
+order to prevent internal dislocations.</p>
+
+<p>To old John in particular the great barrister’s company was heaven
+upon earth. It was the first time in his long life that he had been
+privileged to share learned society. Besides, the port wine was of
+the best. And taking advantage of a lull, while Mr. Portland lit for
+himself a large <span class="pagenum" id="Page_95">[Pg 95]</span>superbly-flavoured cigar, he said, with enthusiasm, to
+the porter: “Just fill them yere glasses up again, my boy!”</p>
+
+<p>The porter filled those glasses again; and old John, rummaging his
+pockets, discovered they were empty of silver.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, it doesn’t matter, sir,” said the porter accommodatingly. “I’ll
+mark them up, and you can pay for them in the morning.” Then, as if to
+emphasise his confidence in old John, he spilled one out for himself,
+which he also marked down to old John.</p>
+
+<p>“Never worry about owing a few drinks here, Mr. Dashwood,” the famous
+barrister remarked off-handedly, “the hotel belongs to a wealthy
+temperance syndicate. A good harvest, Mr. Dashwood.” Down went the
+whisky in a gulp, then, smacking his lips a few times, Mr. Portland
+took a pull at the cigar, and plunged into a story about “a deaf and
+dumb fellow, a college chum of his who turned out to be one of the most
+capable and eloquent pleaders at the Bar in Mexico.”</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly and solemnly the great city clock, a mile up the street,
+chimed out the hour as 1.30 o’clock. The great barrister stopped in
+the middle of his story, pricked his ears, and quoted a weird lump of
+Latin verse that had particular reference to graves, and the dead, and
+midnight.</p>
+
+<p>As the melancholy echoes of the clock died away several <span class="pagenum" id="Page_96">[Pg 96]</span>solemn,
+dusty-looking hotel-hands, habitues of the scullery, appeared, shoving
+before them a lengthy four-wheeled trolly, upon which was stacked to an
+alarming height a magnificent pile of boots and shoes—males’, females’
+and children’s—and the soles of which were numbered in chalk.</p>
+
+<p>“Upon my honour, just look here,” exclaimed Mr. Portland, upon
+observing the cargo of shoe leather that had been “put out” by the
+lodgers to be cleaned while they themselves slumbered peaceably in
+their hired beds, “now isn’t that a sight worth sitting up to see—eh?
+Isn’t it?”</p>
+
+<p>“An’ that ain’t all of ’em,” sorrowfully remarked one of the dusty
+boot-blacks, while his two companions stood beside the pile and grinned
+grins of irony.</p>
+
+<p>“You don’t say so!” cried Mr. Portland enthusiastically, “and are you
+fellows going to polish that ship-load before morning?”</p>
+
+<p>“Before mornin’?” grinned one. “It’s that now, sir!”</p>
+
+<p>“Then before you start on your long and early journey round those
+number nines, gentlemen, you had better have a drink.”</p>
+
+<p>The boot-blacks required no second invitation. And they didn’t wait to
+make enquiries as to the respectability of the person who desired them
+to drink with him. Boot-blacks all know the dangers of delays. Their
+feet didn’t hit the floor once before they arrived with a loud bang
+against the office door.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_97">[Pg 97]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Brandy, Billy,” they all said in the same breath.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Portland bowed interrogatively to old John. Old John said he’d
+“have port wine again.”</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Portland himself and his friend Murphy remained true to whisky.</p>
+
+<p>“Best respec’s, sir,” said the boot-blacks, up-ending their glasses.</p>
+
+<p>“Your very best health, gentlemen; and a pleasant morning,” responded
+the noted barrister—“a pleasant morning.”</p>
+
+<p>He emptied his glass and strode over to the heap of shoe leather and
+surveyed it. A huge, ugly male boot of great length caught his legal
+eye. He lifted it, and stared long and studiously at it. “Enough to
+give any man ten years!” he said scornfully, and dropped the boot back
+on the pile.</p>
+
+<p>The boot-blacks grinned.</p>
+
+<p>“That’s Judge Yorrick’s,” one of them said. “He’s here to-night!”</p>
+
+<p>“Heavens!” cried Mr. Portland, lifting the long, ill-shaped boot again,
+“so it is! I should have known it by the utter look of imbecility it
+has about it; by the woeful lack of decision and direction that’s
+stamped all over it; and, above all, I most certainly should have
+recognised its distinguished owner in it by the almost entire absence
+of a sole! Poor old Yorrick! I know you too —— well,” <span class="pagenum" id="Page_98">[Pg 98]</span>and once more
+Mr. Portland dropped the boot on the pile. Looking further afield his
+eyes rested on a lady’s shoe with “21” chalked on the sole of it. He
+took it in his hand and turned it over and over tenderly. He pressed it
+to his starched bosom and said: “Ah, th’ dear, dainty little thing.”
+(Old John and Murphy laughed.) “Could that innocent, empty little shoe
+but speak!”</p>
+
+<p>The chalked figures on the sole caught his eye, “Ah! and your owner is
+only 21. A tender age! The bloom and bud of life!”</p>
+
+<p>“Twenty-one!” growled one of the boot-blacks. “Yer wouldn’t say so if
+yer see’d her upstairs, sir. A leather-necked ole hen, what’s nearer a
+century. ‘Twenty-one’ is only the number of her room!”</p>
+
+<p>“What!” cried Mr. Portland sharply, “that’s—that’s <i>my wife’s</i>,
+then!”</p>
+
+<p>Then all at once it seemed to come upon him from different directions
+that he had been basely insulted.</p>
+
+<p>A burst of laughter greeted his ears.</p>
+
+<p>“You d— ruffian!” he shouted and flung the shoe at the head of the
+offending boot-black, who promptly ducked and took refuge in the dark
+shades of the elevator encasement. The two remaining boot-blacks
+entered into the humour of the situation. Mr. Portland turned his wrath
+upon them.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_99">[Pg 99]</span></p>
+
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="boots" style="max-width: 106.25em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_099.jpg" alt="" data-role="presentation">
+  <figcaption>
+    “<span id="cor_99" class="smcap">Boots O!</span>”
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_100"></a><a id="Page_101"></a>[Pg 101]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Scullery rats!” he cried. “Take that! and <i>that</i>!” aiming in
+quick succession at them Judge Yorrick’s large ill-tempered-looking
+boots. The shoe-blacks dodged this way and that. The leading counsel of
+the Commonwealth armed himself with a fresh supply of clog-hoppers, and
+pursued them with vengeance in his eye. The <span id="cor_101"></span>night-porter and Murphy and
+old John pursued Mr. Portland, calling upon him to “take no notice.”
+The affrighted shoe-blacks flew up several flights of the great stairs.
+Mr. Portland pelted them up on to the fourth landing. Here he was
+overtaken by the night-porter, his friend Murphy and old John. They
+beseeched him in the interests of the slumbering lodgers, and in the
+good name and reputation of the hotel, to desist.</p>
+
+<p>Mr. Portland desisted.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, call the scavengers back,” he said, starting to descend the
+stairs, “and we’ll have a doch-an-doris.”</p>
+
+<p>The night-porter called them back. With grins on their faces the
+shoe-blacks returned cautiously to their pile of boots.</p>
+
+<p>“A doch-an-doris, you sweeps,” called out the great barrister to them,
+“and I’ll file a <i>Nolle Prosequi</i> against you, and let you off
+without a stain on your blackened characters.”</p>
+
+<p>The three shoe-blacks came up to the office door again, smiling.</p>
+
+<p>They all drank again.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_102">[Pg 102]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Well, we’ve had a very pleasant evening,” Mr. Portland said,
+addressing his friend Murphy, “taking it all in all. And Mr. Dashwood,”
+turning to old John, “I have to thank you for the pleasure of your
+company this evening, and I’m quite alive to the fact that your stay
+with us was prolonged at acute personal inconvenience and sacrifice to
+yourself. Porter,” to the night officer, as he pointed to the lift,
+“lead thou the way to that virtuous bug-roost for the joys of which I
+am paying four guineas a week!”</p>
+
+<p>The porter led the way; and the merry trio ascended in the lift to
+disperse on different floors and seek their respective rooms.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>Next morning, old John, with some silver in his hand and a look of
+repentance on his brow, sought the night-porter.</p>
+
+<p>“What is it Ah owes yow for last naht,” he enquired, in a confidential
+whisper.</p>
+
+<p>With a meaning smile the porter referred to the pages of a pocket book.</p>
+
+<p>“I thought we were going to have some trouble, last night, sir?” he
+began. But old John wasn’t to be drawn. He had no inclination whatever
+to discuss the doings of “last night.”</p>
+
+<p>“How mooch, lad?” he whispered again, glancing restlessly <span class="pagenum" id="Page_103">[Pg 103]</span>over his
+shoulder to see if Mrs. Dashwood was hovering near.</p>
+
+<p>“Yours come to—let me see—one pound two and sixpence,” and the porter’s
+face never moved a muscle or disclosed the slightest suspicion of his
+feeling in any way the pangs of a guilty conscience.</p>
+
+<p>Old John staggered visibly.</p>
+
+<p>“Eh?” he said, “Ah only put down one lot o’ drinks, weren’t it?” and he
+glanced back over his shoulder again.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t suppose you remember, sir,” said the unblushing flunkey,
+in low, guarded tones that insinuated scandal and disgrace, “y’
+know you were shouting right and left for all hands. Oh, you were
+<i>terrible</i> bad last night, sir, terrible bad!”</p>
+
+<p>Here old John observed Mrs. Dashwood making towards him from the
+breakfast room.</p>
+
+<p>“One pahnd two an’ sex,” he murmured, dropping the coin into the
+porter’s hand.</p>
+
+<p>“Right, sir, thank you, sir,” said that gentle, obliging rascal, and,
+with a heavy sinking feeling at his heart, old John turned away.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp75" id="i_103" style="max-width: 121.1875em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_103.jpg" alt="" data-role="presentation">
+</figure>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_104">[Pg 104]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_VI">
+    <span class="smcap">Chapter VI.</span>
+    <br>
+    Meeting McClure.
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">Monday.</span></p>
+
+<p>“<i>Ding-dong. Ding-dong. Ding-dong. Ding-dong. Ding-g-g-g.</i>” And
+the great town-clock, towering in solitary state above the noisy, dirty
+city, proclaimed it one o’clock. One o’clock! The hour when the great
+army of poorly-paid clerks, clerks with little lungs, little vitality,
+and less prospects, clerks with wives and large families dependent
+upon them, put down their pens with weary sigh, and, turning to the
+modest sandwich bulked in the packet with a banana, begin their mid-day
+meal; the hour when ministers of the crown, heads of departments,
+proprietors, directors and managers of business houses, bank managers,
+promoters of gold mines, coal mines and delusive oil mines, and the
+horde of affluent purse-proud members of city society swagger forth
+with air of rare importance into the main thoroughfares to advertise
+their persons and prosperity and to dine largely and expensively at the
+clubs, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_105">[Pg 105]</span>the grand hotels, and the swell tea-rooms. One o’clock! the
+hour when doors of smellsome factories open to emit teams of men and
+women, boys and girls, into the open for a mouthful of fresh air, some
+to collect in circles about the doors, munching their bit of lunch,
+some to hang round the nearest street corner, others to play quoits
+or gamble for pence on some vacant allotment or down a dark lane; the
+hour when followers of the turf or football and cricket congregate
+before the sporting rendezvous to smoke cigars and cigarettes, and
+to criticise all that happened, or that should have happened, on the
+Saturday before; the hour, too, when the labour agitator, seizing time
+by the forelock, takes the stump in park and square to straighten out
+the political question of the day and arrange things with the working
+man for the effective belting of “boodle” with the heavy end of the
+ballot box.</p>
+
+<p>And, standing beneath that great clock, old John and Peter stared up
+at its giddy height and wondered by what means it was ever elevated to
+such a position. And while they debated the matter with each other a
+burly, hairy form in a new roomy tweed suit and a new hat waddled from
+the crowd and greeted them in cheery, familiar voice.</p>
+
+<p>“Mah gracious me if ’n ain’t Duncan McClure!” cried old John, holding
+out his hand, while Peter started to laugh with delight at the welcome
+and unexpected appearance of their good-natured country cousin.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_106">[Pg 106]</span></p>
+
+<p>“By criky!” said Duncan, his humorous little eyes twinkling merrily
+from behind the rolls of fat that gathered in his hairy cheeks, “I was
+standin’ ower there a’maist cryin’ harrd, while I was listenin’ tae a
+chap singin’ ‘Th’ Bonnie Hills o’ Scotland’ when I keeked ower here
+an’ saw ye. ‘By cripes!’ I said, ‘if that’s no auld John Dashwood an’
+Peter, I’ll eat ma bloomin’ bonnet.’”</p>
+
+<p>“Ah-h,” laughed old John, “you’ve good eyes, Duncan; an’ yow won’t have
+to eat yow’re hat.”</p>
+
+<p>“By gosh, an’ I’m jolly glad aboot it, for Ah jist bocht it oot o’ a
+shop the noo, and it cost me five an’ saxpence,” and, taking his hat
+off, McClure invited his friends to pass their friendly opinion upon
+the merits of his purchase.</p>
+
+<p>They both gazed on the felt and at McClure’s bare head and smiled.</p>
+
+<p>“Dae ye no think it’s dirt cheap at five an saxpence?” asked McClure
+proudly. “It’s sic a lang time sin’ I bocht onything mysel wi’oot th’
+wife that I had maist forgotten hoo tae make a deal wi’ th’ skaff-raff
+ahind th’ coonter.”</p>
+
+<p>Old John dragged his own “nail-can” off, and answered:</p>
+
+<p>“Well, Ah paid fourteen shillins for yon.”</p>
+
+<p>“Holy Smoke!” and McClure pulled a long and serious face. “Ye maun be
+gaun balmy.”</p>
+
+<p>“It’s a good het, though,” John said, in justification of the
+expenditure.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_107">[Pg 107]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Weel, it’s a different sorrt tae mine,” Duncan drawled, “that ane o’
+yours is th’ sorrt Tam o’ Todshaw an’ auld George Reid an’ some o’ th’
+blackfellows that gets hats gi’en tae them for naething wears. I dinna
+care for that style mysel’ a bit. They look well eneuch on you, though,
+Dashwood; a lot better than on George Reid.”</p>
+
+<p>Peter removed <i>his</i> head-gear and remarked that he only paid
+“eight bob” for it.</p>
+
+<p>“I wadna be seen deid wi’ a hat like that, Peter,” Duncan said. “By
+cripes, I dinna ken where ye got ane like it.”</p>
+
+<p>Peter laughed, and all three replaced their hats on their heads, quite
+oblivious of the fact that a number of people standing by were smiling
+hard at them.</p>
+
+<p>“I didn’t know yow were dahn here, McClure,” old John remarked, opening
+up fresh conversation.</p>
+
+<p>“Tae tell th’ truth,” Duncan answered, “I didna mean tae come doon till
+I kent ye were here yoursel’, Dashwood. ‘I’ll swear be ma soul,’ I said
+tae the wife, ’auld Johnny Dashwood’s hae’n a deil o’ a gude time o’
+it,’ an’ she said: ‘Well, can ye nae gang doon yoursel’?’ ‘By cripes,
+now,’ I thocht, ‘I just will,’ and I had nae sooner thocht it than a
+chap frae th’ railway came along an’ telt us a’ aboot th’ cheap fares——”</p>
+
+<p>Here a sudden gust of wind lifted McClure’s hat from his head and
+propelled it into the centre of the street, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_108">[Pg 108]</span>amongst the traffic. Peter
+pursued it on Duncan’s behalf. Before he could rescue it, however, a
+cabman’s horse put his foot in it, and cut gashes in the crown of it.
+Peter, smiling, returned with it in his hand.</p>
+
+<p>“By cripes, now!” Duncan said, staring at the ruin, “isn’t that a holy
+terror. It’s eneuch tae make a bloomin’ pairson swear.”</p>
+
+<p>Old John went off into laughter: “Hoh! hoh! hoh! hoh! hoh!” he roared,
+while he rocked and rolled about on the pavement.</p>
+
+<p>“Bust ye!” Duncan said, and, punching the damaged felt into some sort
+of shape with his fat fist, pulled it over his head again, leaving a
+tuft of his hair sticking up through it like the comb on a cock’s head.</p>
+
+<p>Old John and Peter laughed more.</p>
+
+<p>“Yow can’t wear yon now, McClure,” old John said, advisedly, “yow moost
+get anoother.”</p>
+
+<p>“I’ll need tae get a bit o’ a snack first,” answered Duncan, plunging
+both hands into his roomy pockets and looking quite happy as he stared
+about him. Then after a silence:</p>
+
+<p>“Hae you fellows had a feed yet?”</p>
+
+<p>Neither old John or Peter had had lunch, but both were hungry.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp51" id="mcclures_hat" style="max-width: 141.0625em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_109.jpg" alt="" data-role="presentation">
+  <figcaption>
+    <span class="smcap">McClure’s Hat.</span>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>“There’s a rrattlin’ gude place just roon this corner,” <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_109"></a><a id="Page_110"></a><a id="Page_111"></a>[Pg 111]</span>McClure
+suggested. “A blackfellow keeps it—weel he’s na exac’ly a blackfellow,
+either, he’s mair o’ a yaller fellow, but he keeps gude stuff, an’ he
+gi’es ye a grreat lump o’ steak what’s a’ fu’ o’ juice. By crikey! an’
+when ye takes a mouthfu’ o’ it ye hae tae eat like a rracehorse tae
+keep it frae a’ rinnin’ oot down yer cheeks,” and, waddling off through
+the thronging people, McClure conducted John and Peter to his favoured
+restaurant.</p>
+
+<p>When they had comfortably seated themselves at a small table, and given
+their orders to a robust-looking waiter, Duncan, staring before him,
+observed dryly:</p>
+
+<p>“By Christmas, that’s a braw necktie ye hae on, Dashwood. I can see it
+quite plain i’ that lookin’-glass ower there!”</p>
+
+<p>Peter, starting to giggle, began adjusting his tie in the mirror.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, yours isn’t nearly sae gran’, Peter,” Duncan added, noticing the
+action of the other.</p>
+
+<p>But old John offered no remark. He neither excused nor denied the
+gaiety of his neck adornments. He merely groaned, and glared about to
+see if there were any signs of the lunch arriving.</p>
+
+<p>Duncan, catching Peter’s eye in the mirror, winked and remarked further:</p>
+
+<p>“It reminds me o’ a grreat joke I used tae hae wi’ auld <span class="pagenum" id="Page_112">[Pg 112]</span>Sam Snather
+and Paddy O’Regan th’ first year that I started selectin’ at Craig-lea.
+I’ them days we a’ had tae borrow quite a lot o’ things frae each
+ither, an’ these twa auld beggars that I’m gaun tae tell ye aboot were
+as harrd as th’ deil hissel to borrow a thing frae. De ye recollec’ any
+o’ them, Dashwood?”</p>
+
+<p>Old John said he remembered them well.</p>
+
+<p>“But Peter wadna,” Duncan continued, “he was anely a wean then crawlin’
+aboot pu’in’ th’ cat’s tail. Weel, when it became rreal necessary tae
+beg th’ lane o’ onything frae auld O’Regan I used tae pu’ roon’ ma neck
+a wallopin’ grreat green muffler, an’ bring th’ end o’ it richt back
+roon’d me waist an’ ride ower wi’ it showin’ like a rainbow. An’ auld
+O’Regan he’d be sae awfu’ pleased that he’d gie me anything he had
+aboot th’ farm. In fac’ I believe he’d hae gi’en me his auld saw o’ a
+wife tae take away on ma shouther for th’ askin’.”</p>
+
+<p>“I didn’t know he had a wife,” old John remarked.</p>
+
+<p>“By cripes, then,” said McClure, “if it wasna his ane it was some ither
+yin’s. There was ane there. But wi’ auld Sam Snather,” he went on, “it
+was dufferent. Sam, he was one o’ them wild, blatherin’ Orangemen,
+an’ when Ah wantit tae borrow onything frae Sam I was a’ways maist
+carefu’ tae pit on a grreat yaller muffler. An’ soon’s I came beside
+th’ hoose wi’ mae heid concealed frae view ahint th’ peach trees, <span class="pagenum" id="Page_113">[Pg 113]</span>I’d
+start whusslin’ ‘Th’ Battle o’ th’ Boyne’ michty harrd. By crikey, auld
+Sam wad be awfu’ pleased. He’d bring me intae th’ hoose tae show me a
+pictur’ o’ th’ grreat battle whaur William fought an’ bled——”</p>
+
+<p>Here the waiter turned up with the “juicy” steak, and all three eagerly
+settled down to business.</p>
+
+<p>“Dinna yae think it’s gude beef, Dashwood?” Duncan enquired, eating
+noisily.</p>
+
+<p>Old John agreed that it was.</p>
+
+<p>“D’ ye like it, Peter?” and Duncan looked to see how Dashwood junior
+was faring.</p>
+
+<p>Peter’s mouth was too full to reply at the moment, but his eyes and
+bulging cheeks conveyed all the answer that Duncan required.</p>
+
+<p>For quite a long interval no conversation was carried on, but as the
+steak disappeared from his plate Duncan found his tongue again.</p>
+
+<p>“Auld Dill Mackay’s a grreat Orangeman,” he said “Hae ye ever heard him
+preach, Dashwood?”</p>
+
+<p>Old John said he hadn’t.</p>
+
+<p>“Naither hae Ah,” said Duncan, “but Ah hae seen a pictur’ o’ his legs
+i’ th’ <i>Bulletin</i>. <span id="cor_113"></span>D’ ever ye rread th’ <i>Bulletin</i>, Dashwood?”</p>
+
+<p>Old John shook his head.</p>
+
+<p>“I suppose you rread th’ <i>Maissenger</i>. Ah rread that, too,
+<span class="pagenum" id="Page_114">[Pg 114]</span>sometimes, but there’s a deil o’ a lot o’ religion in it. Th’
+<i>Bulletin</i> is deefferent tae th’ <i>Maissenger</i>. It’s a maist
+irreverent bloomin’ paper, an’ I dinna see what’s tae preevent them as
+write it frae a’ gaun tae hell thegither; but this pictur’ Ah’m tellin’
+ye aboot wi’ auld Dill’s twa legs wi’ his trews rolled abune th’ knee,
+would make th’ deil himsel’ laugh, by cripes it would. An’ by crikey,
+he’s got sic’ grreat legs, too. Oor auld pairson hasna got legs near
+like them. We keep him too beggarin’ puir tae let them get as fat as
+Dill Mackay’s. Cripes, he maun eat an awfu’ lot tae get legs like what
+he has. Mine are pretty big anes——”</p>
+
+<p>Duncan was interrupted by the waiter enquiring if he’d take
+plum-pudding or rice pudding.</p>
+
+<p>“Weel,” he said, “Ah’m no a beggarin’ Chinaman. I’ll hae a lump o’
+ye’re plum-puddin’.”</p>
+
+<p>Peter said he’d have some rice pudding.</p>
+
+<p>“By cripes!” Duncan said, staring solemnly at Peter, “ye’ll hae tae eat
+it wi’ twa lang sticks!”</p>
+
+<p>Peter’s eye started to dance with painful apprehension, and he gasped:</p>
+
+<p>“Eh?”</p>
+
+<p>“Ye will that, Peter!” and the solemnity of Duncan’s face increased the
+other’s feelings of apprehension.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, here; heigh! heigh!” Peter called to the departing waiter, “I’ll
+have plum-pudding, too!”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_115">[Pg 115]</span></p>
+
+<p>Duncan laughed inwardly at the simplicity of Peter.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t want any of their sticks,” Peter growled in a determined sort
+of way.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s a gude job ye had me wi’ ye, Peter,” Duncan said, slyly, “or ye
+wad hae had them, though!”</p>
+
+<p>Peter agreed that it was.</p>
+
+<p>Luncheon over the three were ready to leave.</p>
+
+<p>“That adds a big lump tae th’ expense o’ my trip doon here, Dashwood,”
+Duncan said, with a sorrowful look on his face as he regarded his
+damaged hat reflectively.</p>
+
+<p>“But hadn’t yow better make haste an’ buy anoother yun,” replied old
+John, “yow might as well go bare head as wear that!”</p>
+
+<p>Duncan thought hard for a while.</p>
+
+<p>“Ah’ll telt ye what Ah’ll dae, Dashwood,” he said, with a roguish look
+in his eye, “Ah’ll toss ye tae see whither ye pey for th’ three dinners
+or buy me a new hat,” and he took out a silver coin and began spinning
+it in the air.</p>
+
+<p>Old John was in sporting humour. “Spin yow th’ coin, then,” he said.</p>
+
+<p>“Wha’ ever wins takes th’ choice,” Duncan explained, as he twirled the
+coin.</p>
+
+<p>“Heads!” cried old John excitedly.</p>
+
+<p>“Gosh, no! it’s a bloomin’ tail!” shouted Duncan, securing the coin
+again. “Ye’ve tae buy me a new hat, Dashwood.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_116">[Pg 116]</span></p>
+
+<p>Peter laughed and jeered at his parent for having lost.</p>
+
+<p>Old John accepted the verdict in silence.</p>
+
+<p>Duncan paid three shillings in settlement of the bill of fare, and off
+they trooped into the street again.</p>
+
+<p>“By crikey!” Duncan said, as they approached a draper’s shop, “that’s
+the first time I ever won a wager!”</p>
+
+<p>A few steps further on and a shopman in a long-tailed coat greeted them
+as lost brothers.</p>
+
+<p>Old John acted as spokesman.</p>
+
+<p>“This way, sir,” and the shopman led the way past piles of drapery and
+goods of all descriptions to a small counter at the far end of the
+building, where he introduced old John to a pale, youthful counter-hand.</p>
+
+<p>McClure and Peter loitered in the rear, examining the general display.</p>
+
+<p>“Listen here, lad,” old John whispered hoarsely to the pale, youthful
+counter-hand, “Ah only wants a shellin’ hat. I don’t want any other
+kahnd!”</p>
+
+<p>“About what size, sir?”</p>
+
+<p>“The biggest yow can get. It’s to fit mah friend comin’ along there,”
+and he pointed down the floor to the burly McClure.</p>
+
+<p>“We have a line of shilling hats, sir,” said the counter-hand, “but I
+couldn’t recommend them. If——”</p>
+
+<p>“It doesn’t matter what they be lahke so long as they’re <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_117"></a><a id="Page_118"></a><a id="Page_119"></a>[Pg 119]</span>only a
+shellin’,” old John interrupted eagerly.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp53" id="duncan_approves" style="max-width: 151.6875em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_117.jpg" alt="" data-role="presentation">
+  <figcaption>
+    <span id="cor_119" class="smcap">Duncan Approves.</span>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>The counter-jumper went away and returned with a pile of flimsy felt
+hats and stacked them on the counter.</p>
+
+<p>Old John beckoned Duncan forward.</p>
+
+<p>Duncan breasted the counter and breathed heavily on the display of
+head-gear.</p>
+
+<p>“Now, dinna ye buy anything that’s rreal dear, Dashwood,” he said, as
+though his conscience was smiting him.</p>
+
+<p>Old John winked at the counter-hand. The counter-hand seemed to sum up
+the situation, and assured Duncan that “they were a very reasonable
+line.”</p>
+
+<p>Duncan selected one from the pile, and, removing his own, fitted it on
+his head.</p>
+
+<p>“By crikey!” he said, “th’ vera first fits me like a glove.”</p>
+
+<p>“And it suits yower complexion,” old John remarked.</p>
+
+<p>“There’s a glass there, sir,” from the counter-hand.</p>
+
+<p>Duncan turned and surveyed himself from head to toe in a large mirror.</p>
+
+<p>“Crikey!” he remarked philosophically, “I never thocht I was sae fat
+as that.” Then, as he straightened the hat and pulled it well over his
+ears. “This one’ll do gran’ if it’s nae costin’ a lot o’ money.”</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t think you’ll find it too dear, sir,” the counter-hand said
+reassuringly.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_120">[Pg 120]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Oh, Ah have na got tae pay for it,” Duncan said, with a pleased laugh.
+“I won it i’ a toss.”</p>
+
+<p>Old John winked at Peter. Peter had a vague sort of idea that there
+was a joke lurking somewhere about his parent, but he <span id="cor_120"></span>couldn’t exactly
+locate it.</p>
+
+<p>“Is there anything else, sir?” asked the counter-hand, as he handed old
+John a slip for the amount of his purchase.</p>
+
+<p>“Ye’ll get nae mair oot o’ him th’ day,” Duncan informed the shopman,
+with a chuckle.</p>
+
+<p>The counter-hand smiled and bowed, and his custom departed.</p>
+
+<p>When they reached the street, Duncan said:</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t want tae be too harrd on ye, Dashwood; an’ sae as tae make
+things a little bit even I think th’ three o’ us’ll gang an’ hae a
+drink o’ something.”</p>
+
+<p>Old John consented, and the three of them marched into the nearest
+hotel and drank eighteenpennorth, for which Duncan promptly paid.</p>
+
+<p>“That clears ma conscience a bit anyway,” Duncan said, with a feeling
+of satisfaction, as they reached the street again.</p>
+
+<p>Old John winked at Peter, and Peter felt more mysterious than ever as
+to the whereabouts of the suspected joke.</p>
+
+<p>“Weel, noo,” McClure said, “I’ve got a lot o’ things tae <span class="pagenum" id="Page_121">[Pg 121]</span>look after
+yet, sae I hae’d better gang awa’. I’ll call roon’ though sometime and
+see ye a’ at yer pub.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, yow had better take this with yow,” old John said, handing
+Duncan the shopman’s slip for the price of the hat.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, by crikey, yes,” Duncan said, putting the slip into his vest
+pocket. “It’ll do when I get hame tae show th’ wife hoo I got th’ best
+o’ auld John Dashwood,” and off Duncan wobbled along the street.</p>
+
+<p>“Hoh! hoh! hoh! Hoh! hoh-h-h!” laughed old John as he and Peter went
+off the other way. “Do you know how much Ah paid for the hat, lad?”</p>
+
+<p>Peter hadn’t the slightest idea.</p>
+
+<p>“A <i>shellin’</i>!”</p>
+
+<p>“Hah! hah! hah! Hah! hah!” and Peter jumped about and slapped himself
+on the knee and attracted the attention of the police and passers-by.
+“By George it takes you, father! It takes you! I knew you had something
+on!”</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_122">[Pg 122]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_VII">
+    <span class="smcap">Chapter VII.</span>
+    <br>
+    James and Peter attend Church.
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">Sunday.</span></p>
+
+<p>Old John, Granny, Mrs. Dashwood and the girls had accepted an
+invitation to tea and to spend the evening in the suburbs. James and
+Peter were alone at the hotel. They moped about all the afternoon, and
+time hung heavily on their hands. After tea they retired to their room
+and moped more. For want of something better to do James turned his
+pockets out and counted his money.</p>
+
+<p>“That’s all I’ve got left of my lot,” he said, producing a half
+sovereign and two sixpenny pieces.</p>
+
+<p>Peter chuckled and said it was more than he had. “I’ve none at all,” he
+added, “unless I can get some more out of father!”</p>
+
+<p>James doubted Peter’s chances of raising any more funds from his
+parent, giving as a reason, that “father was buying a traction engine
+to-morrow!”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_123">[Pg 123]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Well, lend us five bob of yours?” Peter said.</p>
+
+<p>James smiled and returned the money to his pocket James had lent Peter
+“five bob” before.</p>
+
+<p>They lay across their beds and stared at the ceiling. After a while
+James said:</p>
+
+<p>“Suppose we go to church somewhere?”</p>
+
+<p>“Anywhere you like,” Peter answered, with a chuckle, and off they went.</p>
+
+<p>Out in the street James paused and said:</p>
+
+<p>“Well, where are we going—to what church?”</p>
+
+<p>“The Scotch church,” Peter answered. Peter had an idea that the Scotch
+church was better than other churches. Peter held curious ideas about
+churches.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, it’s down this street and up the next,” James said, leading the
+way.</p>
+
+<p>“Are you going to walk there?” Peter asked in surprise.</p>
+
+<p>“And back, too,” James answered, “unless you’re going to pay for the
+tram.”</p>
+
+<p>Peter laughed. He also walked.</p>
+
+<p>Presently they were approaching the sacred edifice. They could see the
+lights in every window. The bell was tolling in their ears.</p>
+
+<p>At the large gates guarding the entrance they paused a while and held a
+silent consultation.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, what do you think?” James said. James’s <span class="pagenum" id="Page_124">[Pg 124]</span>spiritual courage was
+dwindling.</p>
+
+<p>Peter glanced at the imposing-looking building and chuckled. “I dunno,”
+he answered, “perhaps we had better let it rip and come some other
+evening.”</p>
+
+<p>James glanced wonderingly toward the open door, then up at the sky to
+see if there was any signs of rain. But it was a bright night, without
+a cloud in sight.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, I don’t know,” he drawled doubtfully, “perhaps we had better go in
+now that we’ve come so far.”</p>
+
+<p>The last of the congregation passed in.</p>
+
+<p>James and Peter sauntered closer to the door. They posted themselves,
+one each side it, and took observations. They could see the interior
+of the building ablaze with light. They could see the draped pulpit.
+They could see the great organ. They could see a sea of heads packed
+together, like sheep in a yard.</p>
+
+<p>The last bell rang dolefully.</p>
+
+<p>“Well,” James whispered, “what do y’ think?”</p>
+
+<p>Peter thought the place was full.</p>
+
+<p>James said he could see an empty seat “on the right.”</p>
+
+<p>There was a brief silence.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, you go first,” Peter suggested, “and I’ll follow. Ha! ha!”</p>
+
+<p>“<i>Sh-h-h!</i>” from James. Peter’s mirth sounded like sacrilege to
+James.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_125">[Pg 125]</span></p>
+
+<p>Peter craned his neck to locate the empty seat that James had in view.</p>
+
+<p>He drew back and said he “couldn’t see it,” but he “could see a
+Chinaman.”</p>
+
+<p>James shook his fist threateningly at Peter.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, go on,” Peter said, with a grin.</p>
+
+<p>James almost took a step forward, but halted in the middle of it. Peter
+stifled a laugh. James scowled at him.</p>
+
+<p>The organ started to play low and soft. James glanced wistfully back
+at the street, but only moths and night flies, fluttering round a dim
+gas-lamp, were there. Then he glanced interrogatingly at Peter. Peter
+glanced at James.</p>
+
+<p>Suddenly the organ burst into loud thundering peals that startled them.</p>
+
+<p>James couldn’t stand any more. He gripped his hat firmly in his fist
+and took the fatal step. In long, quick strides he set out for that
+empty seat. Peter started after him, taking even larger strides
+and tramping on James’s heels, and attracting the attention of the
+congregation Peter thought James would never arrive at that empty seat.
+It seemed more than a mile away. But James reached it at last and
+dropped with all his weight into it. Peter dropped on James. It was a
+swell seat, too—covered with a luxurious cushion. They both breathed
+hard, and stared silently and strangely about. On a card let into the
+cedar <span class="pagenum" id="Page_126">[Pg 126]</span>panel before them was the name of the Premier of the State.
+Their eyes rested on the name, then they looked meaningly at each other
+and thought hard. An ugly suspicion that they were trespassing crept
+all over them and made them go cold.</p>
+
+<p>Several moments of heavy suspense passed. Then a venerable churchwarden
+glided down the aisle and hovered over them. His long, grey whiskers
+fell about their necks. They both thought their hour had come. The
+ancient warden whispered things to them through his hands, and pointed
+with his thumb to the rear of the church. But he might as well have
+talked to them on his fingers. They didn’t understand.</p>
+
+<p>At last he gave them up and retired to consult with a brother official.</p>
+
+<p>A broad man with a red face and a double chin and a heavy gold chain
+linked across his stomach, carrying a kid glove and a walking stick
+in his hand, closely followed by a tall lady, covered with finery and
+perfume, paused at the seat James and Peter had “jumped,” and glared
+at them. It was a trying moment for James and Peter. They “shoved up,”
+and crouched together till they resembled compressed fodder. The lady
+clutched her skirts in her hand and hesitatingly sat down beside Peter.
+The burly Premier, glaring at the occupants of his “reserved” seat, sat
+with a series of grunts.</p>
+
+<p>The lady opened a large fan and talked behind the battlements of it to
+her Premier husband.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_127">[Pg 127]</span></p>
+
+<p>James and Peter heard her say: “Outrageous!” and “all sorts of people!”
+and it made them feel faint.</p>
+
+<p>A moment later the parson appeared, and the service commenced. It
+commenced with a hymn. The congregation stood to it. So did James and
+Peter—stood like fools, for they were unprovided with “hymnaries.”
+Not that this made any difference to the singing. But in the absence
+of <span id="cor_127"></span>“Sankey” they felt that the eyes of the congregation were all upon
+them. Suddenly the gloved hand of a lady in the seat behind thrust an
+open book under their nose. Her thoughtfulness went near to ending
+their lives. That all the eyes of the congregation <i>were</i> upon
+them now they had no doubt. Peter wished James had been seized with
+appendicitis before he started to induce him to go to that church.
+James mechanically reached for the book, and holding it upside down,
+nudged Peter to join with him in song. Peter responded in a series of
+hysterical laughs, which were drowned by the voices around him. All
+the same that hymn-book helped them on a long way. It made them feel a
+little at home, and more like the rest of the congregation.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p>The parson rose and preached his sermon. It must have been a good
+sermon. No one disagreed with it. There was not a solitary dissenting
+voice. When he concluded his “third part” and sat down, a mild
+commotion set in away at <span class="pagenum" id="Page_128">[Pg 128]</span>the rear of the church. Several church
+officials left their places and moved about the aisles. The organ
+played again. James and Peter wondered what was going to happen. A coin
+dropped on the floor and rolled round on a solemn excursion of its own.
+Some more started to jingle in a plate; then they fell thicker and
+thicker. A collection! Peter’s heart gave a jump. He became uneasy.
+The Premier’s wife took out a purse and rattled the contents. Peter
+remembered seeing “escape door” printed up on the walls of the theatre.
+He looked round to see if there was one in the church. There wasn’t.
+By the ring of the silver Peter knew the plate was coming nearer and
+nearer. He began to perspire. James dug his hand down into his trouser
+pockets. Peter glanced pleadingly at him.</p>
+
+<p>“I’ve two sixpences,” James whispered, and pressed his hand against
+Peter’s. Peter clutched at the proffered coin and nearly took a joint
+of one of James’s fingers with it.</p>
+
+<p>The plate arrived. Peter planked his piece on top of the pile. It
+gave the man behind the plate a surprise. It gave Peter one, too; and
+it nearly took James’s breath away. It was a gold-piece—James’s only
+<i>half sovereign</i>.</p>
+
+<p>The Premier and his wife seemed to take a different view of Peter.
+They looked as though they would be pleased to know him. Peter,
+himself, suddenly felt on an equality<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_129"></a><a id="Page_130"></a><a id="Page_131"></a>[Pg 131]</span> with them. He sat up straight,
+and his eyes gleamed with the light and consciousness of wealth and
+philanthropy. But James felt different to Peter. A heavy, sinking
+feeling seemed to come over him. His teeth rattled, and he dug his
+finger nails into Peter’s thigh. But Peter only listened to the organ.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="the_church_collection" style="max-width: 208.9375em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_129.jpg" alt="" data-role="presentation">
+  <figcaption>
+    <span class="smcap">The Church Collection.</span>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>The benediction pronounced, and the congregation rose and started to
+file out. James and Peter were almost last to leave.</p>
+
+<p>At the door the man who took up the collection was waiting with
+beaming countenance. He shook hands with Peter, and enquired if he was
+a stranger. Peter said he was, and told him where he came from. The
+churchman said nothing to James.</p>
+
+<p>He shook hands with Peter again, and hoped to see him become a regular
+attendant at the services. Peter smiled and hurried after James. They
+passed out the gate and walked through the streets for about a mile
+before James spoke.</p>
+
+<p>At last he looked at Peter, and said:</p>
+
+<p>“Of course I only lent you that half sovereign, remember!”</p>
+
+<p>“Hah! hah! hah! Hah! hah! hah-h-h!” came loudly from Peter. And a
+solitary policeman standing on the opposite side of the street stared
+wonderingly across.</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_132">[Pg 132]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_VIII">
+    <span class="smcap">Chapter VIII.</span>
+    <br>
+    In the Public Domain.
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">Sunday</span> again. The whole family rambling through the great public
+park. Mrs. Dashwood and the girls in heaven amongst the panoply of
+flowers, ferns, artistic nooks, and bowers and shapely shaven lawns.
+They dragged old John here, there, and everywhere, around this bed,
+down that path, and from hill-top to water’s edge. They searched for
+historical spots and monuments, for sights they had heard others talk
+of, and for sights they had never heard of at all.</p>
+
+<p>Peter and James struck out on their own account. Flowers and ferns,
+with a gloomy weather-worn old monument or two thrown in, were not in
+their line. They became interested in the forms and types of humanity
+that were around them. And such forms, such types! Verily, it were
+as though all the freaks and misfortunes of nature had been gathered
+together from all parts of the earth and emptied into that domain. The
+blind, the stunted, the lame, the halt, the limbless, the lungless, the
+hopeless, the homeless, all <span class="pagenum" id="Page_133">[Pg 133]</span>were in evidence there. On every hand, at
+every turn, they were crouched beneath the spreading trees, unnoticed
+by the hordes of leisure seekers, as unregarded by the world in general
+as though they had never lived.</p>
+
+<p>Aged and decrepid pensioners hobbled feebly about on sticks; careless
+nurse-girls, with other peoples’ infants hanging anyhow in their arms,
+loitered around; girlish wives, with boyish husbands at their sides,
+pushed the precious first-born along in its new gorgeous perambulator;
+crowds of merry children, let loose for the day, romped riotously
+over everything. From improvised platforms stump-orators shouted
+themselves hoarse for the benefit of jeering, cheering crowds that
+out of curiosity assembled to hear their mouthsport. Cricket pitches,
+tennis courts, and bowling greens were in full play. And as interested
+spectators of the latter James and Peter, in the course of an hour or
+so, found themselves seated at the butt of a large shade tree.</p>
+
+<p>The rinks were sprinkled with tottering old grey-beards and
+grandfathers, big-bingied, stiff-backed old fogies who did nothing all
+the week but smoke cigars and pose as “leading citizens.” There were a
+hundred or more of him in short sleeves and flannels, and a faithful
+portrait of any one of him would have been a valuable asset in the days
+of the humorous valentine.</p>
+
+<p>What the game was all about or what constituted the <span class="pagenum" id="Page_134">[Pg 134]</span>skill of it or
+what didn’t, James and Peter hadn’t the remotest idea, but they saw
+great fun in it, and sometimes laughed till they nearly hurt themselves.</p>
+
+<p>“Look, look at the old cove in the middle, with the braces; watch
+<i>him</i>!” Peter cried, tugging hysterically at James.</p>
+
+<p>James fixed his gaze on that “old cove” and followed his movements
+closely.</p>
+
+<p>The “old cove,” with one withered hand supporting the bowl, the other
+pressed against his left hip, bent down, carefully and cautiously,
+till he was almost sitting or lying on the lawn. A blatant, breathless
+sort of individual of the larrikin class, standing in the vicinity of
+James and Peter, groaned a loud, satirical groan, in the interests of
+the feeble bowler, that added to the enjoyment of our two friends.
+They turned their attention to the larrikin. Delighted to find he was
+affording amusement to some one he lifted his voice a note or two
+higher and called: “Now, then, <i>Spofforth</i>!”</p>
+
+<p>The hoary bowler bent some more, and, satisfied that his feet had a
+grip of the earth, and that his sight was correct, slowly extended the
+bowl to arm’s length.</p>
+
+<p>“Now, then! ah-h!” bellowed the larrikin, and James and Peter broke
+into fresh merriment.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp100" id="now_then_spofforth" style="max-width: 209.4375em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_135.jpg" alt="" data-role="presentation">
+  <figcaption>
+    “<span class="smcap">Now, Then Spofforth!</span>”
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>But the warrior didn’t deliver the bowl just then; he drew his hand
+back again until the bowl touched his side, <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_135"></a><a id="Page_136"></a><a id="Page_137"></a>[Pg 137]</span>then once more he pushed
+it to arm’s length, and for several moments repeated these movements
+until he seemed to be imitating a man with a saw. Finally the bowl slid
+from his palm and started off on a peaceful rolling excursion down the
+rink. As it travelled the old cove’s arms went out each side of him,
+his chin went forward, his eyes started to jump out of his head. The
+bowl started to deviate to the right. The aged sportsman resorted to
+will-power to guide it. He hung over his left side and strained all his
+shrunken sinews to haul that bowl to leeward. Instead of responding
+the bowl started to show symptoms of spent energy before it had
+travelled half way down the rink. It got down to snail pace and began
+to flounder. The old cove worked his head and hands up and down like a
+pump and “hooshed” it. The bowl wobbled, then made one more revolution
+and stubbornly lay down on the green and sulked. The old cove spun
+stiffly round on one leg and, in a hollow, broken voice, shouted:</p>
+
+<p>“Ech! damn it a’!”</p>
+
+<p>“Hoh! hoh! hoh! Poor old Daddy Christmas!” cried the larrikin,
+sympathetically, and, swinging round, walked abruptly away. James and
+Peter, having had their fill of excitement, followed his example.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, I dunno!” James murmured, coming to a standstill, after they had
+explored the great park from end to end, “but it beats me where they
+can have got to!”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_138">[Pg 138]</span></p>
+
+<p>Peter, with tears in his eyes, gazed about like one abandoned to the
+heartlessness of the cruel world, and whined: “I’d know them if I saw
+them, though, by Maria’s red dress!”</p>
+
+<p>They moved on, and strolled round the base of a drowsy old monument
+that never got tired of standing in the one place on the brow of a
+hill. Numbers of people of all kinds were lounging round, reading
+newspapers and feasting on fruit in the vicinity of that monument.
+James and Peter scanned the faces of them all, but no! there was no
+father, no mother, no Polly, no Tilly amongst them!</p>
+
+<p>They were in the act of abandoning the search and returning to the
+hotel when Peter’s eyes suddenly lit up like the morning star, and he
+uttered a short, happy laugh.</p>
+
+<p>“There they are! Ha! ha!” he said, pointing to a red dress, amongst a
+number of others, on a long rustic seat, and off he scampered. James
+followed him slowly. James always took his joy calmly, and suppressed
+all symptoms of excitement. Besides, James wasn’t so confident about
+the discovery as Peter. But Peter’s assurance increased as the distance
+between himself and the objects of his sudden happiness was reduced.
+Once he glanced round to see if James was following, then raced on
+again.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp53" id="guess_who" style="max-width: 151.125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_139.jpg" alt="" data-role="presentation">
+  <figcaption>
+    “<span class="smcap">Guess Who!</span>”
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>The female in the red dress sat with her back to Peter, <span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_139"></a><a id="Page_140"></a><a id="Page_141"></a>[Pg 141]</span>so did her
+companions. They were talking about the next Government House Ball,
+and the lady in red had just remarked that she “was afraid Sir Thomas
+would be leaving for Japan,” when Peter, stealing up on tip-toe, and
+smiling like a picture, blindfolded her with his hot, clammy hands,
+and held her back hair firmly against his manly bosom. The lady gasped
+and strained and tried to rise, but Peter had a firm grip of her. Her
+friends on either side turned their heads and glanced up curiously
+at Peter. Peter, still smiling, glanced down at them. But instead
+of encountering the eyes of Polly and Tilly he beheld the faces of
+two absolute strangers. Peter nearly dropped dead. He staggered back
+several yards. He was still staggering when the outraged one, finding
+her feet, demanded to know why “he dared lay hand on her?”</p>
+
+<p>“Call a policeman, Lady Fitzsmith!” one of her companions, both of whom
+were now facing Peter, excitedly advised.</p>
+
+<p>Peter didn’t wait for any more. He bolted, and didn’t draw breath
+or look round till he reached the iron gates opening on to the busy
+street. There he waited until James came up. James, who had also deemed
+it advisable to run, came up with perspiration and a scowl on his face.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_142">[Pg 142]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Well, you are an idiot of a fellow,” he said, “an awful d— idiot!”</p>
+
+<p>Peter sparred for wind, then gasped:</p>
+
+<p>“By—by Jove, I thought she was” (puff) “<i>Maria</i>, didn’t you?”</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp75" id="i_142" style="max-width: 125.75em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_142.jpg" alt="" data-role="presentation">
+</figure>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_143">[Pg 143]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_IX">
+    <span class="smcap">Chapter IX.</span>
+    <br>
+    Peter in the Breakers.
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">Since</span> arriving in the metropolis the family had witnessed many scenes
+and sights that had filled them with wonder and surprise, but when
+they stepped from the jangling tram-car to the great sand beach by the
+sea and beheld the mixed mass of humorously-clad humanity plunging and
+flopping in the roaring, rolling breakers, the limit was reached.</p>
+
+<p>“Dear, oh dear! oh dear!” Mrs. Dashwood gasped, “just look at the
+women!”</p>
+
+<p>Polly and Tilly giggled. Old John and James and Peter stared hard, then
+burst into laughter.</p>
+
+<p>So that visitors might study and enjoy the awful sights that rolled
+and stalked about the sand an enterprising management had furnished
+the beach with chairs at a penny a time. Old John took ten pennorth of
+chairs, and secured positions of advantage in the front row. Then the
+eyes of <span class="pagenum" id="Page_144">[Pg 144]</span>the family began to roam over the scene before them.</p>
+
+<p>And such a scene! Such a display of bare arms, bare necks, bare
+legs! Such a hideous exhibition of ill-shaped humanity! Such clumsy,
+clothes-bag corporations! Such crooked trunks and winding limbs! Such
+a galaxy of fat, flabby women of forty! Such a multitude of thin,
+skinny women of fifteen and fifty! And such odd women, with no chests,
+and legs rolling with fat to the ankles! Verily it was a great sight,
+worthy of a great city. It seemed as though nature were out for the
+day, as though she were holding a grand parade, a parade of all her
+best jokes, her most humorous works of art!</p>
+
+<p>And as the mellow, moaning breakers rolled in on the heels of each
+other, flinging and flashing flakes of froth and foam before them, the
+bathers were tossed sportively about on the crests like so many scraps
+of cork.</p>
+
+<p>Now and again a large female would be lifted off her legs and thrown
+into the arms of some frail, bald-headed old fool, who, in his
+excitement, had forgotten to remove his spectacles when undressing, and
+together they would turn turtle to the great delight of the spectators.</p>
+
+<p>A broad-backed man, with a heavy stomach and bow legs, arrayed in a
+suggestion of blue short pants and a handkerchief, crawled out of the
+water and stood with his back obscuring the view of our friends. There
+was sand in his <span class="pagenum" id="Page_145">[Pg 145]</span>hair and his ears. The salt water trickling down his
+hairy back dripped off him on to the sand. The Dashwoods looked at
+each other, then blushed and laughed. This man was the mayor of the
+great city, but he might just as well have been one of the council
+cart-horses for all the notice that was taken of him.</p>
+
+<p>Mrs. Dashwood voiced a desire to return to the city; but old John
+opposed the proposition. Old John was beginning to see the fun of
+surf-bathing. So was Peter.</p>
+
+<p>“By Jove, I don’t know,” Peter said enthusiastically, “I wouldn’t mind
+having a dip in it. Will you come in, father?”</p>
+
+<p>“Go on with you, boy!” Mrs. Dashwood interposed, “your father would
+never be so stupid.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, now, Ah bain’t be sure,” old John put in, with a short laugh.
+“Everyone be agoin’ in, an’ Ah thenks it’s good for yow.”</p>
+
+<p>Tilly took alarm.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, father’s going in, too!” she said to Polly, with a look of horror.</p>
+
+<p>“He’s <i>not</i>!” sceptically from Polly. Polly was sure her parent
+would never do anything that would lower the family pride.</p>
+
+<p>“Well, only for the baby,” Maria said bluntly, “I’d go in myself. I
+don’t see where the harm comes in so long as you have got something on.”</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_146">[Pg 146]</span></p>
+
+<p>At this Polly and Tilly tittered, and Mrs. Dashwood said:
+“<i>Maria!</i>”</p>
+
+<p>But Maria was prepared to argue the matter.</p>
+
+<p>“Now, what’s wrong about it?” she insisted, turning to her mother.</p>
+
+<p>“There bain’t be nothin’,” old John put in, “an’ Ah’ll go wi’ yow,
+lad,” he added, addressing Peter.</p>
+
+<p>Peter jumped at the suggestion.</p>
+
+<p>“Come on, then, father,” he said, and off they went to join the throng
+of fresh arrivals that were crowding into the paling yards which served
+for dressing-rooms.</p>
+
+<p>They were absent for quite a while.</p>
+
+<p>At intervals Mrs. Dashwood and the girls would glance nervously around
+to see if old John really meant to join the surf-bathers.</p>
+
+<p>Eventually old John and Peter appeared, garbed like a pair of circus
+clowns. Stepping tenderly over the pebbles in their bare feet they
+advanced to the water’s edge. Old John, with his ponderous corporation
+covered with red, his long, hairy arms dangling about, and his long
+feet poking out before him, formed an interesting addition to the many
+humorous surf sights. Peter, in blue pants that were mostly trunk,
+might, at a distance, have passed for a girl.</p>
+
+<p>At sight of them Mrs. Dashwood felt the family virtue had gone for ever.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_147">[Pg 147]</span></p>
+
+<p>“I never thought they could be such fools!” she moaned plaintively.</p>
+
+<p>“I don’t think they’re fools!” Maria growled stubbornly. “Do you,
+James?” she asked of her staid brother.</p>
+
+<p>But James didn’t know what to think. He could only stare and chuckle.</p>
+
+<p>“Good gracious me!” Tilly murmured, as she felt cause for fresh alarm,
+“I do hope they won’t come over here, near us.”</p>
+
+<p>“Well, <i>I</i> won’t stay if they do,” and Polly glanced along the
+crowded beach.</p>
+
+<p>Old John and Peter took boldly to the water. They paddled through the
+shallow parts, one behind the other, like King Sandy and his gin out
+ration-hunting. The tail-end of a wave flew up at their heads. It was a
+cold tail-end. They gasped, and laughed and pranced about. They waded
+further, until the water rose above their knees, then anchored awhile.
+And while Peter scooped up fistsful of brine to wet his head as a
+protection again sunstroke, old John gave his whiskers a drenching, and
+adjusted his red garment, which showed an inclination to part company
+with him. Both looked back at their friends on shore and waved.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t notice them!” Mrs. Dashwood advised.</p>
+
+<p>“Pretend you don’t see them!” Tilly added.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_148">[Pg 148]</span></p>
+
+<p>But Maria’s heart was with the surf-bathers. She took out her
+handkerchief and waved back, and waved again, until the front seats
+resembled a flag station. Then, elevating her infant in her arms, she
+called upon it to gaze afar out upon “grandfather.” People sitting near
+her smiled and turned their eyes upon the attractive form of old John.</p>
+
+<p>Old John and Peter ventured some more. The water was now up to their
+waist. A great wave came breaking in, bearing back to shore scores of
+bathers on its bosom. Quite a column of them were shooting straight for
+old John. John saw the breaker coming. He put out his chest and stood
+to it bravely. The breaker struck him, and the head of a flying female
+struck him too. It bunted him in the stomach and knocked him back. Like
+a sunken ship old John went down in three feet of water. At the same
+time, though, his hands went out like grappling-irons. They gripped
+the offending female and dragged her under also. Then for a moment two
+pairs of unevenly balanced legs were seen walloping the surface water
+into foam and fury, just as though two monsters of the deep were there
+engaged in deadly combat. The half-smothered female came to the surface
+first, and, with a gurgle and a splutter and an hysterical squeal,
+floundered off in pursuit of her friends. Then up rose old John like
+a whale, and, discharging quite a cargo of salt water, dragged at his
+whiskers and joyfully roared his appreciation <span class="pagenum" id="Page_149">[Pg 149]</span>of the rough-and-tumble.
+The spectators joined with him in his merriment. The more they saw of
+old John the more they enjoyed him, and so as no mistakes would be
+made when they were pointing him out to each other they designated him
+“whiskers” and <span id="cor_149"></span>“old red-skin.” Some others who had overheard Maria
+familiarly referred to him as “grandfather.”</p>
+
+<p>At intervals Polly and Tilly would glance round to see what like those
+people were who would make <i>their</i> parent a butt for jokes. In
+fact, they became very uneasy, and as a way out of the predicament
+Tilly suggested they all take a walk along the beach. But receiving no
+encouragement from the others she contented herself through the few
+remaining miserable moments by prodding the sand at her feet with the
+point of her parasol.</p>
+
+<p>Encouraged by the example of experienced bathers around him, Peter
+set his mind upon swimming out to meet the breakers. He swam out. In
+fresh water creeks Peter was a fair swimmer; amongst the breakers,
+of course, he was a fool. Peter swam out further than the boldest of
+them. Then he attracted notice. A chorus of voices called warningly
+to him. He rounded and turned his head for shore again. Then suddenly
+something went wrong. He struggled, and splashed, but made no headway.
+He lost ground. The angry sea was carrying him out, bearing him <span class="pagenum" id="Page_150">[Pg 150]</span>off
+another victim! Peter yelled. A hundred others yelled. All hit out
+hurriedly for shore till all that could be seen in the surf was Peter’s
+black head bobbing about afar out. The alarm went up and down the
+beach. Everyone rushed to the same spot, and the crowd thickened and
+thickened. The spectators stood upon the chairs.</p>
+
+<p>“It’s <i>Peter</i>!” Tilly shrieked.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, my God!” and Mrs. Dashwood fainted into the arms of James. Then
+lusty cries of “<i>Marcee! Marcee!</i>” rang out, and were echoed all
+around. The stalwart, sinewy, scarred form of the hero of a hundred
+rescues, life-line in hand, eyes open wide, nostrils distended, raced
+from the dressing-room and took to the water. The crowd watched
+silently, breathlessly. Out forged Marcee, arm over arm. Nearer and
+nearer he drew to Peter. Still not a murmur from the multitude on the
+beach. The dropping of a pin on the sand would have made a big dint in
+the silence. Then, like a clap of thunder the break came. “<i>He’s got
+him!</i>” burst on the air like the belching of <span id="cor_150"></span>twenty thousand guns.
+For just a moment Marcee and Peter seemed to grapple with each other.
+Then the iron-like fist of Marcee was uplifted and Peter received the
+punch of his life on the head.</p>
+
+<p>“It was to stun him so as he wouldn’t hold me!” Marcee explained
+afterwards.</p>
+
+<hr class="tb">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_151">[Pg 151]</span></p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp52" id="in_the_breakers" style="max-width: 150.1875em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_151.jpg" alt="" data-role="presentation">
+  <figcaption>
+    <span id="cor_151" class="smcap">In the Breakers.</span>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_152"></a><a id="Page_153"></a>[Pg 153]</span></p>
+
+<p>When Peter came to again he was lying in a hotel by the beach, and
+a doctor in bathing costume, and the whole family and a number of
+sympathetic old women, were watching over him.</p>
+
+<p>“Why—what th’ deuce are you all doing, eh? Is it dinner-time? What?”
+and Peter stared strangely about.</p>
+
+<p>Then Mrs. Dashwood fell on his neck and shed tears all over him and
+called him her “darling boy.”</p>
+
+<p>Old John, who had been bellowing like a pen of bull calves, threw his
+arms round the doctor.</p>
+
+<p>“He’ll be all right now,” the latter said, with a smile, and went off
+to the beach again.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp75" id="i_153" style="max-width: 120.8125em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_153.jpg" alt="" data-role="presentation">
+</figure>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="chapter">
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_154">[Pg 154]</span></p>
+
+
+  <h2 class="nobreak" id="Chapter_X">
+    <span class="smcap">Chapter X.</span>
+    <br>
+    Home Again.
+  </h2>
+</div>
+
+
+<p class="drop-cap"><span class="upper-case">A fortnight</span> since the family, weary and dusty, with all the parcels,
+bundles and battered baggage, arrived home at the farm. A fortnight!
+And that holiday still fresh and green and going strong! The trip to
+the city was thought of, talked of, laughed over, morning, noon and
+night. Incidents were recalled, re-enacted and served up at breakfast,
+dinner and tea. Friends who called at the home to welcome the family
+back were treated to the minutest detail of the things that happened.
+They heard it all from Mrs. Dashwood, from Tilly and Polly and from old
+John; heard it from them severally; heard it from them jointly; heard
+it from them backwards; heard it from them frontwards; heard it from
+them endwards and sidewards. It was a great holiday—the greatest of
+all holidays—that holiday of the Dashwoods. It was excelled only, if
+excelled at all, by Noah and his ark and all his animals.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_155">[Pg 155]</span></p>
+
+<p>But the trip did the family some visible good. It worked wonders in
+their methods, and gave a universal aspect to their outlook.</p>
+
+<p>And upon none was the influence more marked than upon Peter. Peter
+showed reform in his very walk, in the cut of his hair, in the shape of
+his boots, in the odour and quality of his pocket handkerchiefs, and in
+the wonderful variety of tooth-brushes and razors that now adorned his
+bedroom. But it was the distinct and complete change in his studious
+pursuits that rendered the reformation of Peter complete. Ambition set
+in strong upon him. He hungered for fame. In his heart he secretly
+longed to do something that would put all the great minds of the world
+in the shade.</p>
+
+<p>Peter turned his attention to invention.</p>
+
+<p>Once, for about six months, while it was new, Peter rode a bicycle with
+tremendous enthusiasm, but, tiring of the toy, which cost old John
+fifteen guineas, discarded it in favour of a mule that arrived on the
+farm, and hung the wheels up on the walls of the barn to harbour vermin.</p>
+
+<p>Peter’s attention now reverted to that bicycle. Acting upon an
+inspiration which came to him in the city, he locked himself in the
+barn along with that bicycle and worked hard and mysteriously upon it
+for many weeks. But what service it was that Peter hoped to render
+humanity and the world <i>per</i> medium of said bike no one had any
+idea. Whether he had any himself or not remains to be seen.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_156">[Pg 156]</span></p>
+
+<p>“Goodness only knows,” James sniggered, in answer to his sisters one
+day upon the matter, “I don’t think he knows himself. A new sort of
+life buoy, perhaps, to take with him the next time he goes for a swim
+in the breakers!”</p>
+
+<p><span id="cor_156"></span>The peals of laughter that came from the sisters reached the ears of
+Peter. He threw open the door of the barn and thrusting out his head
+enquired the cause of their mirth.</p>
+
+<p>“Oh, something good, Peter!” from Tilly.</p>
+
+<p>“They’re laughing at this invention of yours,” James said, with a grin.</p>
+
+<p>“By Jove, then,” Peter answered, in a self-satisfied sort of way, “it’s
+all right. It’s finished now, and I’m just going out to give her a
+trial!”</p>
+
+<p>The girls threatened to go off their heads with joy. They ran inside
+for their hats, and loudly proclaimed Peter’s announcement to their
+parents. “The great invention is finished!” they cried. “Come and see
+it working.”</p>
+
+<p>The parents, grinning broadly, came and saw.</p>
+
+<p>Old McMurdy and his wife, passing in a sulky, pulled up at James’s
+invitation and waited near the gate to witness the unveiling of the
+miracle.</p>
+
+<p>They hadn’t long to wait. The barn door opened wide again and Peter,
+with the bicycle rigged in full canvas like a sailing boat, appeared.</p>
+
+<p>His appearance was greeted with loud merriment.</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_157">[Pg 157]</span></p>
+
+<p>But the mirth didn’t disconcert Peter.</p>
+
+<p>“Wait till you see her going!” he said, with a grin.</p>
+
+<p>James, who had laughed least of any, suddenly evinced an interest
+in the invention. He stepped forward and held its head while Peter
+re-adjusted the setting and rigging.</p>
+
+<p>When a number of small things were attended to Peter mounted, and,
+seating himself somewhere between the lower topsail and the flying
+jib, invited James to give the brig a shove off. James shoved her, and
+Peter, grinning, peddled cautiously to keep her balanced. Suddenly a
+gust of wind came up and, catching in the topmast staysail, the craft
+made a lurch to leave port per the open gate-way.</p>
+
+<p>“Hah! hah! hah! h——” roared old McMurdy from the seat of the sulky, but
+his mirth was short-lived. It was the first time his sulky horse had
+set eyes on a sailing craft, and it reared, then flew round and bolted
+up the road as though suddenly possessed of several devils.</p>
+
+<p>When the brig cleared port and arrived in the middle of the road-way
+it stopped and languished for want of wind. The sails started to flap
+uselessly, and Peter had to pedal hard to keep her afloat.</p>
+
+<p>Fresh merriment and jeers came from the family. But Peter propelled
+assiduously with his feet, and worked his passage for about fifty
+yards. Then a change came over the weather conditions. Up sprang a
+breeze with some life <span class="pagenum" id="Page_158">[Pg 158]</span>and devil in it. It filled the flapping sails
+till they looked like balloons, and hurried the barque off up the road
+at full speed. Peter’s bosom filled with joy. He felt he had achieved
+a triumph. He was sure he had conquered the world. Raising his legs he
+rested them on the handle-bars as he whirled along. Peter believed in
+taking success calmly and contentedly. Talk about ploughing the deep
+and the main! Peter was ploughing the main stock route.</p>
+
+<p>As she glided and wobbled along, the craft looked a strange quadruped.</p>
+
+<p>Terence Blaises, a Justice of the Peace, who had just turned in at his
+slip-rails, with a cart of empty milk-cans from the factory, observed
+the strange white object floating calmly up over the horizon. Terence
+put up the rails and, leaning both arms on them, waited wonderingly.</p>
+
+<p>“Now, what th’ divil is it at all?” he murmured, as the brig came
+rattling and “swishing” along in the wind. But the banging of milk-cans
+in the rear caused Terence to jump round quickly and shout: “Woa, boy!
+woa!” The horse didn’t “woa” worth considering. It flashed its glaring
+mongrel eye upon the craft, then off, knocking down trees and throwing
+empty milk-cans at the clouds. Terence pursued him till he fell over
+a milk-can, and gave up. He looked back pathetically at the sailing
+craft. The sails dipped and ducked as though saluting Terence in
+passing, but <span class="pagenum" id="Page_159">[Pg 159]</span>further than that no communication passed between him and
+Peter.</p>
+
+<p>Successfully negotiating a corner in the road without going to pieces,
+Peter set sail for the township. The township was situated in the
+middle of a great plain. It sat, simmering there like a steak on a
+grid-iron. The road to it was level, and as good as could be expected
+from the average Australian Shire Council. There were numerous
+deformities along it, of course, many of which bore evidence of the
+Council’s intention to wipe them out some day. In fact, like the road
+to hell, the township road was paved with good intentions.</p>
+
+<p>A fair wind and a nowing sail drove the barque over the rolling plain
+in gallant style.</p>
+
+<p>A mile or so ahead a hooded gig, drawn by a sleepy rheumatic steed,
+hove in sight. It was the township lawyer making for his branch
+office, the local store at the next railway station, where, amongst
+the rock-salt and empty crockery cases, as per advertisement in
+the <i>Settler</i>, he <span id="cor_159"></span>journeyed bi-weekly to consult with farmers
+and dairymen having grievances, and to lead them into trials and
+tribulation for a modest fee. A few moments more and the distance
+between the brig and the gig was reduced to chains. Then the sleepy,
+rheumatic steed, suddenly waking up, stopped dead and stared like a
+brumby for the first time looking at <span class="pagenum" id="Page_160">[Pg 160]</span>a wind-mill. The craft came on
+like a great white eagle. The township lawyer, to satisfy himself it
+was not a hallucination, popped on his gold-rim glasses and eyed the
+advancing brig closely. He gave a short chuckle. He raised a hand and
+was about to hail the captain to enquire the name of the vessel when
+that rheumatic steed gave one decisive snort, and, swinging round, flew
+like the wind for the township. The lawyer’s hat came off and flew out
+the back way; then his glasses followed. The barque rode tranquilly
+over the lost apparel. For about a mile Peter kept just behind that
+flying quadruped; and whenever the lawyer got a pull on, and the animal
+seemed inclined to reason with the bit, the “swish” of the barque in
+the breeze would put fresh terror into the brute, and away he would go
+again.</p>
+
+<p>“D—n you!” the lawyer shouted, but his blasphemy didn’t reach Peter.
+Then for fully three miles, until a cross road afforded a haven of
+safety, that lawyer was driven before Peter like Cain flying before
+Jehovah.</p>
+
+<p>Having lost so much ground, the lawyer abandoned his mission and
+decided to return to the township, permitting his steed to jog along at
+a safe distance behind the offending craft.</p>
+
+<figure class="figcenter illowp52" id="peters_latest" style="max-width: 144.375em;">
+  <img class="w100" src="images/i_161.jpg" alt="" data-role="presentation">
+  <figcaption>
+    <span class="smcap">Peter’s Latest.</span>
+  </figcaption>
+</figure>
+
+<p>With a full sail, and the mast dipping and bobbing as the brig rode
+over the hills and hollows in the ill-formed street,<span class="pagenum"><a id="Page_161"></a><a id="Page_162"></a><a id="Page_163"></a>[Pg 163]</span> Peter started
+to enter the township. No band played; no chorus of voices sang the
+“Conquering ’Ero”; there was nothing to greet or cheer Peter. But
+there must have been as many as fifty horses standing calmly between
+the shafts of vehicles outside the shops, and as many more fastened
+to posts by their bridles. And Peter had not proceeded twenty yards
+along that street when there wasn’t an animal in sight. They all became
+obscured in a cloud of dust that was rolling out at the other end of
+the township. And all that was to be seen in the street was a mob of
+excited men and women, pieces of sulkies, broken lamp-posts and the
+maimed and mangled remains of a Councillor, whom the Shire Clerk and
+the newspaper editor were supporting in their arms.</p>
+
+<p>“Don’t! Don’t hold her there!” Peter cried, when the rough hands of two
+furious policemen seized hold of the sails of his craft. “You’ll spoil
+her!”</p>
+
+<p>“Phwat game is this?” yelled one of the bobbies, while the other,
+seizing hold of Peter, hissed: “Yis ’ll paay fer me mahn, if yis ever
+paid fer anythin’!”</p>
+
+<p>Peter started to protest wildly. Peter was in trouble. But soon numbers
+of friends had gathered round him.</p>
+
+<p>The township lawyer, having arrived in good time, pushed himself
+forward, and, planting a card in Peter’s hand, said:</p>
+
+<p><span class="pagenum" id="Page_164">[Pg 164]</span></p>
+
+<p>“I’ve seen the whole thing; I’ll defend you.” Then the local
+representatives of six banks jostled with each other for possession of
+Peter’s ear.</p>
+
+<p>“On deeds, or any security like that,” each of them said, “I can let
+you have whatever you want.”</p>
+
+<p>“Deeds!” growled the police, “there is his <i>deeds</i>!” and they
+pointed scornfully to the maimed Councillor being borne off on a hurdle.</p>
+
+<p class="center">
+<br>
+<br>
+<span class="smcap">The End.</span><br>
+<br>
+<br>
+Wholly set up and printed in Australia by John Sands Ltd., Sydney.
+</p>
+
+
+<hr class="chap x-ebookmaker-drop">
+<div class="transnote">
+  <p class="front" id="Transcribers_Notes">
+    Transcriber’s Notes
+  </p>
+
+<p>New original cover art included with this eBook is granted to the public domain.</p>
+
+<p>The following are corrections to the original text:</p>
+
+<table>
+  <tr>
+   <th class='tdc bb'>Page</th>
+   <th class='tdc bb'>Correction</th>
+ </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">1</td>
+    <td class="tdl"><a href="#cor_01">Opening single quote removed from (to be back at “Fairfield”).</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">10</td>
+    <td class="tdl"><a href="#cor_10">Apostrophe added to (have a talk along wi’).</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">16</td>
+    <td class="tdl"><a href="#cor_16">“adminster” changed to (inclined to administer a rebuke).</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">19</td>
+    <td class="tdl"><a href="#cor_19">“he” changed to “be” (An’ I’d be huggin’ ’em).</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">20</td>
+    <td class="tdl"><a href="#cor_20">Closing quote changed to double in (am I up against!” said).</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">23</td>
+    <td class="tdl"><a href="#cor_23">Opening quote added to (“You won’t! By heavens you”).</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">32</td>
+    <td class="tdl"><a href="#cor_32">“be” changed to “he” (wasn’t me, sir!” he blubbered,).</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">44</td>
+    <td class="tdl"><a href="#cor_44">“squeeky” (sharp, squeaky voice).</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">47</td>
+    <td class="tdl"><a href="#cor_47">“be” changed to “he” (At the door he paused).</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">48</td>
+    <td class="tdl"><a href="#cor_48">“calmy” changed to (strolled in and calmly).</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">49</td>
+    <td class="tdl"><a href="#cor_49">Closing quote and punctuation added to (“he’s going to shoot!”).</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">67</td>
+    <td class="tdl"><a href="#cor_67">“resistence” changed to (resistance was useless).</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">70</td>
+    <td class="tdl"><a href="#cor_70">“a” added to (a Waterbury, secured to his vest)</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">81</td>
+    <td class="tdl"><a href="#cor_81">“imp” changed to (sunk in a limp heap).</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">99</td>
+    <td class="tdl"><a href="#cor_99">Opening quote added to caption in (“Boots O!”).</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">101</td>
+    <td class="tdl"><a href="#cor_101">“night-porter” hyphenated to match the rest of the text.</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">113</td>
+    <td class="tdl"><a href="#cor_113">“Dashwod” changed to (ye rread th’ Bulletin, Dashwood?”).</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">119</td>
+    <td class="tdl"><a href="#cor_119">Period added to caption in (Duncan Approves.)</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">120</td>
+    <td class="tdl"><a href="#cor_120">Period added to (couldn’t exactly locate it.)</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">127</td>
+    <td class="tdl"><a href="#cor_127">Opening quote changed to double in (“Sankey” they felt that).</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">149</td>
+    <td class="tdl"><a href="#cor_149">Closing quote added to (“old red-skin.” Some others).</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">150</td>
+    <td class="tdl"><a href="#cor_150">Period added to (of twenty thousand guns.)</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">151</td>
+    <td class="tdl"><a href="#cor_151">Period added to caption in (In the Breakers.)</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">156</td>
+    <td class="tdl"><a href="#cor_156">“peels” changed to (The peals of laughter).</a></td>
+  </tr>
+  <tr>
+    <td class="tdr">159</td>
+    <td class="tdl"><a href="#cor_159">“journey” changed to (he journeyed bi-weekly).</a></td>
+  </tr>
+</table>
+</div>
+
+<div style='text-align:center'>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 78216 ***</div>
+</body>
+</html>
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diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt
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+This book, including all associated images, markup, improvements,
+metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be
+in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES.
+
+Procedures for determining public domain status are described in
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+
+No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in
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+this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright
+status under the laws that apply to them.
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+Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for eBook #78216
+(https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/78216)