LOCKSLEY IS OUT

and other stories

Harold Mercer

1882-1952

Produced and Edited by

Terry Walker

January 2023

Contents

1: The Twisted Mind

2: Out of the Storm

3: Scotch Blood

4: The Hope Beyond the Horizon

5: The Blind

6: Locksley is Out

7: The Mercy of the Seas

8: The Winner

9: Vendetta

10: Christine's Christmas Stocking

11: Obsession

12: Stars

13:  My Elephant

14: Domestic Economy

15: The Man Who Died

16: The Eagle

17: Babes, Bears, Birthdays and Burglars

18: The Proud Name of Fennessy

19: Violets

20: The Greatest Joke

21: Homing the Goose

22: Don't Kick My Dog

23: Trousers Trouble

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Harold St Aubyn Mercer was born in Brisbane, Qld, in 1882, and his first short story was published in the Bulletin in 1900. His varied career included acting, then becoming the company's touring manager. After marrying, he worked mainly as an accountant and auditor, while also becoming involved as a union organiser.

He served in the AIF in World War 1, and after his return to Australia worked principally in newspapers. He wrote prolifically for the Bulletin and numerous other newspapers and magazines. He also wrote under the pseudonym 'Hamer'.

__________________

1: The Twisted Mind

As by "Hamer"

Weekly Times (Melbourne) 12 Sept 1925

HARDING, with the rain dipping from the torn mackintosh which the bitter, clutching wind rumpled and shook, his boots soggy, stood in the comparative   shelter  of the porch, and shivered as he heard the wind shriek, and shake gusty storms of rain from the trees to the ground. Then the door opened, giving a warm  glimpse of an interior, with its glow of comfortable light, the red tapestries, and cosy carpets. Thorn himself had opened the door.

"You!" he said, holding the door as if to deny him entrance.

"Yes Bob— it's me," he said.

Thorn still stood, staring at him in a resentful fashion.

"I had to come to see you anyway. A man can't let himself go right out without making an appeal to the friends who might help him."

"Oh well, come in," said Thorn unwillingly. "It's a fearful night to be out;  and I might find you a whisky."

It was that scene that kept coming back bitterly to Harding, afterwards; the remembrance of how he had stood in damp misery in the howling storm, and how Thorn's figure had been framed against the brightness and comfort of the glowing interior, seemed to epitomise the comparison between his own wretchedness and the other man's prosperity. Thorn, seeming to repent his churlish greeting, exclaimed about the the water dripping from his coat, and took it from him, led him to a warm fire, and told him to sit beside it; poured him out a stiff nobbler of whisky, and brought it over to him.

"You'd better take off those boots and dry them by the fire. Oh, never mind— you can take them off here," he said. "Your socks too. I'll get you some fresh socks and a pair of slippers."

He went to the door called out, and gave some rapid instructions; and almost as soon as he had returned to the fire a boy came runniny into the room.

"This is Hector— he was the baby when you saw him last— bringing a pair of socks and slippers. And, here," added Thorn, "take another nip of whisky. How's that? Have a cigarette?"

Harding waited, letting the warmth and comfort sink into his chilled bones, before speaking; but when he did speak, Thorn was adamant. He reminded him that he had helped him a great deal in the past, and that after the cheque incident— that reference was not stressed, only introduced as a reminder— he had said he would not do anything further. And that was final.

There was finality in his tone which quietened Harding, mainly because he saw no inclination on Thorn's part to turn him out. He made up his mind that, later, he would renew his appeal.

As if to soften the harshness of his refusal to give any other help, Thorn had suggested that he should have some dinner. He had accepted with a hungry eagerness; but as he sat in the warmly appointed dining-room, watching Thorn with his wife— a woman who showed a touch of delicateness, and greeted him kindly, but half shyly— and his three boisterous children, there was more anger than gratitude in his heart. It was full of envy for the man he found surrounded by the circumstances of domestic happiness, even whilst he ate that man's food with a voracity of which his hunger left him unashamed. It was long since he had eaten such a meal— much longer since he had eaten any meal served with refinement.

Afterwards they had taken their coffee into the sitting-room; talked generally for a time with the children breaking in with their prattle. Then Mrs Thorn had collected the youngsters for bed, and, making an apology, Thorn left after them. He always, when he was at home, helped in putting the children to bed; they expected it of him, he explained.

And, as he went, childish demands for Daddy from a distance proved what he said. Harding heard peals of childish laughter and recalls to the father, who apparently had tried to break off the bed-time sport. Irritated, he rose to half-close the door, and shut out the sound.

It irritated him as a sign of the happiness that Thorn possessed, reminding him again of that picture at the front door. They had been school pals, with his own prospects as bright  as, if not brighter, than Thorn's; and now Thorn had all this, and he— nothing!  A feeling of rage obsessed him; rage at the bad luck that seemed to have beset him; at Thorn, who seemed somehow involved in his own bad luck, and had achieved happiness.

Anyway, Thorn would have to help him. What did all that had happen in the past matter? Thorn had plenty, and he was wanting— that was the position. With some idea of guarding against a further refusal of help, he rose and made a furtive examination of the room, thinking that possibly he might find some money,  or safely convertible valuables. If Thorn promised to help him, why, he would pass what he had taken back; if not, well, the theft would serve Thorn right. But all he found , opening a writing-table drawer, was a revolver. He thrust it his hip pocket with a quick movement. He was sitting by the fire, musing bitterly, when Thorn returned.

"Sorry to leave you so long," he apologised. "The kiddies have got into the habit, and expect their game."

"You seem to be deucedly happy," said Harding, "while I— I've had nothing but bad luck all my life."

"You might have made it better, Jack, " Thorn commented drily.

"That's right— preach!" fired Harding sharply "You can hand out a sermon when you wouldn't hand out a bob."

"I don't want to hand out a sermon any more than I'm prepared to hand out money," said Thorn tersely, "only I hate to hear a man always blaming his luck."

Thorn glared into the fire, repressing irritable speech to get more into line for an appeal.

"Well, anyway, Bob," he said, you've got all you need— and no doubt you deserve it; but surely to God you're not going to turn down a man who's got nothing, and has only suicide left to him unless he can get a helping hand? Surely—"

"Jack," said Thorn, interrupting him, "I'm sorry you give me the necessity to refuse you again. I don't want to talk about the past. Of course I said I would never help you again, and I refused you on that score tonight. But even if it wasn't for that, I couldn't help you. l'm right up against it myself."

"This home of yours makes it look like it," sneered Harding viciously.

"Oh, damn it all!" cried Thorn. "I could just say I wouldn't help you, and leave it at that if I liked, couldn't I! But I'm trying to explain so as to show that it would be impossible to help you. I'm in it to the neck, and don't know how I'm going to get out. There's all this, of course; and it's all got to be kept up and paid for. You can get a few quid and be free of worry, with only yourself to think of; I've got to battle through and keep my wife and kids from suffering "

There was a sigh of anxious strain upon him that carried conviction. In his heart Harding felt a malicious satisfaction at the revelation of his difficulties; outwardly he showed still a sneering disbelief.

"There's no need for you to be in trouble," he said. "Luck has been with you."

"Oh, luck!" cried Thorn, impatiently. "If I liked to talk about luck I might say that it had treated me very badly. I'd rather lay the blame upon my brother."

"Jim?" queried Harding. "Your father left him all his money, didn't he?"

"Hang the money— it isn't too much anyway," said Thorn. "The money's Jim's, of course; but if he dies without children it comes to me. And he hasn't any children. He wanted to marry Emmie; and since she married me, he seems to have decided to remain single. For a long time he would speak to neither of us; then he became friendly again; and we were glad of it. He got my confidence and commenced to advise me to invest money; and, seeing that stockbroking is his game, I relied upon his advice. I invested all the money I could raise; and then he offered to lend me money."

"Jim wouldn't do it for nothing," commented Harding.

"He didn't," said Thorn. "He did it to ruin me. The stock he got me to buy has lost all my money and involved me in all sorts of liabilities; and now he is pressing me for the P.N's. I gave him— as I thought, just for a formality. When you came, I thought it was he to introduce the last act of his revenge. I know he will be coming either tomorrow or the next night. There you are— my position in a nutshell. I can't help you even if I had not said that I never would again."

"A few shillings anyway, wouldn't make any difference."

"A few shillings does make all the difference," said Thorn, irritable at his persistence. His hand withdrew a small variety of coins from his pocket. "That's all the money I've got to see me through; an overdraft as far as they'll stand me at the bank,  and all my screw when I draw it will be spent in staving off things. That is my position; but I mean to fight all I can to save my wife and those kids of mine." A deep emotion gripped his throat. "Now, you see I can't help you."

Into to the street in which the gale had quietened, in his dried coat, the warm unholed socks Thorn had given him, and his dried boots; with the comfort of the food he had taken; and the final whisky the same benefactor had offered him before leaving. Harding stepped with savage exultation that almost made him laugh aloud. He was so much at war with the world that he hated all who knew prosperity; and even when he thought of Mrs Thorn and the happy children he felt no pity for the misfortune threatening them. He rather revelled in picturing them in misery, want and suffering, and in thinking of the laceration of spirit that would bring upon Thorn.

When he had sneaked stealthily up to his bare room there was a wrangle with his landlady, who came to the door and told him through the key hole that the doors would be locked against him the next day, as his promises to pay had failed. By this time his exultation was fading; and whilst he tossed in his bed he was kept wakeful by gusts of hatred, all against Thorn.

His story was absurd— he had cheated him with lies to evade his appeals. Or he would come through safely and he prosperous....

And all next day, with the poor kennel that had at least been a shelter from the night closed upon him, he shuffled about the streets and parks, driving himself mad with the malice and envy that fermented within him. Ever and anon his hand contacted with the revolver he had taken from the drawer in Thorn's house, and he chuckled fiendishly.

Night came. Occasionally stepping into the light of a lamp whilst he produced from his pocket the venomous little automatic, inspecting it with a sort of unhappy satisfaction, Harding lurked in the shadows, a sinister, hungry-faced figure, waiting. He knew himself as a man haunted by bad luck, and it had driven him, at last, to this desperation.

The beginning had been when he had stolen a paltry thirty shillings from the desk of a fellow clerk. The cash was there, the theft seemed easy, and he was devilish hard up— to borrow would only land him further into difficulties. So Thorn's cash suffered; and when he found who had stolen the money he had had to make up, he, generous and easy-going always, forgave both the offenders and the debt and said nothing.

"It would have done him no good if he had," said Harding.

There was no material punishment from the incident; but Harding saw far-reaching effects. He was sacked later on for something altogether different— it was bad luck he was caught!— and lived a precarious life with everything going wrong with him. At the races he could never do any good; he always went there when he could scrape together any money, and he always lost it. Even if he had a win he would go "all up" on the last race and lose the lot. Luck was dead against him. And then his wife— married carelessly— had become chronically ill, and his children died.

He went to Thorn, bitterly resentful of having to do so, for Thorn now occupied a managerial job which might have been his, as the senior, if he had not gone out.

"Nothing has ever gone right with me since I took that money from you," he complained bitterly. "It put the hoodoo on me. Everything I touch goes wrong."

Thorn laughed at that, but was otherwise sympathetic. He rang up another firm and arranged a job for him; and he gave him five pounds to go on with. Thorn had known his wife when she was a bright girl, and was sorry for her. He took Harding out in a friendly fashion, bought him a drink, and advised him to "buck up."

"It was the least he could do," muttered Harding, as he went away, fingering the money. He happened to know a certainty for that afternoon, about which he could got "sixes."

That meant £35. That night he did not have thirty-five pence. The horse had fallen mysteriously just as it was making its run. The haunting bad luck again! The shadows around him grew more intense.

He lost his job again. His home was sold up, at the instigation of the people to whom he owed rent for the roomi which his wife lay fretfully ill; the police came and removed her to hospital, where she lay awaiting her death. A magistrate, who ordered him to pay money for her support, slated him badly, saying that his neglect and starvation was responsible for her condition.

Surrounded by threats of imprisonment for debts which becanae unsatisfied judgments, and because of disobedience to this order, Harding lost the only friend upon whom he could rely.

Thorn had discovered the forgery of his name; and, although he had saved a penal prosecution by recognising the signature as his own, he told Harding to expect no more from him.

The bad luck held— the hoodoo from the old slip, of long ago; and in the twisted mind that saw only the workings of chance in the results of his actions, the hatred he bore the world, centralised in the one man who had consistently been his friend. Lurking at the street corner, his hand gripping the revolver, his watch was on the house where last night Thorn had warmed him from the storm.

A door banged sharply. Outlined against the light a street lamp threw against the light-green foliage of some trees. Harding stiffened as he saw a figure he reeognised immediately swing downwards as it descended the steps; and he shrank, tensely, into the shadow round the corner.

A policeman heard the sharp report, and, hurrying towards the sound, detected the dull "pad-pad" of running feet. The running figure came right into his arms, and was easily secured. The policeman dragged him back the way he had come.

"My bad luck again," grumbled the captive, bitterly. And, then, as they joined the group of people who had hastily poured out of the surrounding houses and gathered around the still body of the man he had murdered, he stared with a greater feeling of failure than he had known in his life before.

He saw, instead of the misery of the household he had aimed to destroy, a restoration of its felicity and prosperity; for he had forgotten the likeness that existed between the brothers Thorn; and there, before him; unscathed but coatless, stood the Thorn he hated.

"The dead man is my brother, James Thorn," he was saying. "He had only just left my house, where he had been to see me."

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2: Out of the Storm

As by "Hamer"

Sydney Mail 16 Sep 1925

GLOSSOP came into Tom Maddon's life like a black cloud into a summer's day. Up to the moment of their meeting the splendour of the sun-kissed world without had only been a reflection of the summer in Tom's soul, he and Kitty had been making holiday, and in the simple planning of their future as they sprawled in the shade of the red gums there bad been a far adventure into the land of romance.

It was when, reluctantly, they had risen for the homeward walk, and reached the road, that Tom heard a hail which caused them him to lurn. The hailer was a taII, sunburnt man with a sharp, cynical mouth, audacious eyes, and a handsome face that in time. would become more distinctly vulturine.

'Andy Glossop!' exclaimed Tom, without enthusiasm, and as the other advanced with outstretched hand he was forced to present Kitty, who looked at, their greeting inquiringly. 'This is Andy Glossop, who went away before the war and hasn't been back till now —you wouldn't remember Kitty Kelly, Andy, I suppose—'

'What! So this is little Kitty!'

Tom felt a resentment, burn in his heart at the way in which he looked at her.

'Where've you been all these, years?' he asked wilh an attempt at heartiness. 'When you didn't come hack after the war we all reckoned you were away for good.'

'I've been knocking about all over the world, seeing all there's to be seen. I've travelled through America; been up to Klondyke; gone back to Europe and travelled over most of it; down to the Argentine, and then over to Africa. After that to India and the Straits Settlement; but I think I'd have been home a couple of years if I'd known the little Kitty I knew had grown to what she is.'

To Tom's resentment was added the feeling that he showed as a clodhopper beside this travelled adventurer. Kitty had not remembered Andy Glossop, but Tom sensed that some vague remembrance of him was drifting back with his presence. He sensed, too, that she was pleased at the flattery of one who had travelled the world, impressed by the romanticism surrounding him.

Rather pitifully, in his secret heart he considered how the man who had merely had a short absence at the war and, having done his share, in an unspectacular way, had returned dully to the round of duty would compare to the man who had added an Odyssey to his service.

HE remembered Glossop only too well: and it was a remembrance of fear. Right; back lo their schooldays he recalled how he would seek paths which would avoid the boy who was quite the outstanding character of the school, and a trouble-centre wherever he went.

It was difficult to know how to take Glossop. Sometimes he quarrelled in the pure desire to assert his supremacy, and a demoniacal inclination to humiliate the boys who both admired and feared him. At other times, with the greatest show of friendship, he partly lured, partly drove Ihem into escapades from which seemingly he was always able to escape, whilst others, drawn in only by his taunts, suffered. The reputation had continued in his early manhood, up to. the time when Andy had taken his departure, a great deal to the relief of the neighbourhood, almost as much to the young men lo whom he was a self-asserted leader as to the mothers who dreaded his influence. The feeling that it was always, best to avoid Andy whether he was hostile or friendly came back to  Tom now. He resented the calm manner in which Andy, instead of leaving Kitty and himself together, attached himself to them, resenting, still more his feeling of inability to deal with the situation and get rid of him.

When, reaching Ihe sliprails at his father's farm, the parting with Kitty came, the presence of the third person made it such a formal thing that, it created a dead feeling of loss in Tom.

'There's the dance at the hall to-night.' Andy had said; 'will you Jet me lake you, Kitty?' 'She's going with me,' Tom had asserted. 'Then I suppose it's no use my calling tor you, unless Tom is unable to go,' commented Andy. Tom remembered wi'th bitterness a cynical flicker of the lips when, hours later, he staggered out of Doolan's pub, waking to the fact that the time was long past when he should have met Kitty to take her to the dance. It had been early in the afternoon when he had parted with Kitty, whose home was only just outside Ihe little lownship. She had only secured the chance of the partial holiday on the understanding that she would be back for the milking, made earlier than usual on account, of the night's dance; and it was only natural when Andy had walked back wilh him to the township, where Tom had put up at Casey's unlit lie should return to his farm, far oul, on the other side, next, day, that he should have a drink wilh the returned wanderer. Rut. many people wanted to drink with the long absentee, and Tom found himself engaged in consuming a sequence of drinks wilh an ever-changing crowd of drinkers, the proceedings becoming an easy, entertaining dream until he suddenly woke, from it to notice that the doors of the hotel were closed. Andy was no longer amongst the two or three men still drinking with him, and the bar clock caused him to gape by showing nine o'clock.

Then if all seemed to him like a planned thing, the idea growing upon his knowledge of Andy's character. It would be like him, simply because he knew that Kitty was engaged to him, to get him drunk in order to have a free opportunity and excuse to meet her and take her to the dance. Such an act would naturally come from the essential cruelty of his nature.

What happened afterwards was a confused memory when Tom, sober, recalled it. There was his appearance, drunkenly excited, at the ball. Kitty's refusal to speak to him at all, the loud, scandalous quarrel, and then a blank, at the end of which he had found himself riding recklessly through the darkness, wearily home.

THE glory of the summer of his life had rapidly become overclouded. Although he went to Kitty with contrition, he had been unable to make his peace with her. Failing, he had flamed in wrath, associating her coldness to him with her new friendship for Andy, and a bitter quarrel widened the chasm between them.

Chewing his anger, he worked fiercely on his farm, refusing to admit in his wrath that he was disturbed by the whispers of his supersession by Andy: but when the anger cooled he was appalled by the thought that he had left her to Andy, whom he knew as she didn't.  He heard that the wanderer was dancing attendance upon her as often as the exactions of old Kelly, who was a hard taskmaster to his family, would permit.

He had brought from his father's farm— the largest in the district— a horse for her to ride with him, and he had taken her out to visit his father. The old man, glad to imagine a tie that would keep his son at home, had welcomed her.

Tom look the news that came to him badly. He had so fastened all his hopes to his marriage with Kitty that life seemed ehaolie and empty when he contemplated his loss of her: but shortly he felt something beyond his own humiliation and loss. Knowing Andy, he could not imagine Kitty happy if he should marry her. His nature was cruel; he delighted in causing torment to those he was in a position to afflict. He had visions of Kilty, married, enduring the worst of misery, the gravest of humiliation, and the visions anguished his soul. For the girl towards whom he had entertained the greatest of tenderness to suffer was agony to him, and he fell, that if that which he dreamed happened it would be his fault, because he had in a manner eliminated himself.

ONE day, as Andy and Kitty— the girl, a natural horsewoman, delighted at the fine steed she was riding— were passing along a secluded road, Tom stepped oul from the bushes amongst which he had been lying and confronted them.

'Kitty,' he pleaded, 'I've just been to the home, and your father told me you were out with Andy. Is it fair to me? You've not had a word to say to me for a week. And we're engaged.'

'We're not,' she retorted coldly. 'At the dance when you behaved in such a horrible way I told you it was all off. You must, remember that.'

'Tom shared at her blankly. 'You can't mean that, Kitty,' he said. 'I don't, remember, anyway.'

'Perhaps you were too drunk to remember,' suggested Andy jeeringly.

Tom looked up at the cruelly smiling face, seeing the joy he knew Andy felt in knowing of his suffering, and rage surged in him.

'Who asked you to talk?' he demanded. 'If I was drunk, it was you who tricked me into it, being a low hound who'd try any low trick to cheat a man you pretend is your friend.'

In his fury Tom came close to him, thrusting his passionate face forward, but lie was quite unprepared for the sudden action with which Andy brought down his whip right across the angry face.

Tom heard Kitty scream as with a roar of anger he dashed forward to seize Andy's foot and drag him from the saddle; but the whip fell with a sharp sting on his wrist, and in agony he fell back. Andy leapt quickly, to the ground and faced him, and Tom's heart sank as he felt the rage which had overcome all other feelings ebbing under another emotion which was very like cowardice.

The sense of helplessness before Andy came back to him just as it had existed in the days of their boyhood. A moment before, with Andy mounted, he had been filled with a maddened desire to tear him from his horse: now he knew he did not wish to fight. He made no move to attack Andy, who, with a smile growing in superciliousness, stood facing him.

Kitty had screamed, but now she was sitting rigidly in her saddle a few feet away watching them, pale but curious. Tom, without definitely realising the thought, felt that all the marches of civilisation had been swept away and the three of them were back in the old crude ages of history when the right to the fealty of the woman had to he won by the opposition of strength to strength. It was that idea that caused him to fling himself against the smiling Andy; but he was already a beaten man before he started. The lust to fight was not in him: he felt that he was only sacrificing himself to defeat and humiliation at the call of a primeval instinct.

The crash of Andy's fists in his face sent him reeling back. That was all of the light. Kitty bad thrust her horse between them, the savage gone and the modern gentler woman pleading, demanding peace.

The exacting sundering was a confusion to Tom: only he remembered afterwards that he had accepted defeat, been glad to get away, had made a practical surrender of the girl he felt, was the only girl he would ever desire, whilst to Andy she might be only a passing fancy.

He felt that his cowardice had betrayed the girl who did not know Andy's want of conscience, but his humiliation was too great for him to make any further approach to her.

Twice he set out with a determination to see her, to appeal to her, to he guarded against the dishonesty of Andy, but his defaming of his rival seemed so abjectly hopeless that resolution ebbed from him on his way and caused him to dally at Casey's when he reached the township.

Each time he woke in the morning the previous night's doings a hazy blank, even as to how he returned, and, cursing himself for his yielding to drunkenness, he resolved to slay at home, striving with hard work to forget that there was a girl named Kitty.

THE spell of glorious weather changed suddenly one afternoon. Ominous clouds had been sweeping the sky all day, but the storm did not, come, until evening. Then it broke suddenly with a rush of wind that buffeted doors and beat at the windows, and brought, with it a downpour of rain that on the iron roof was like a fevered outburst of artillery. The gusty moaning of the water-sogged wind and the gurgle of dripping and running water somehow comforted Tom. He remembered times in France when the falling rain brought similar comfort: it made the conditions miserable, but at least if promised some surcease from the ever-present fear of shellfire. Even if the shells came, they would sink comparatively harmlessly into the moistened earth, either becoming duds or having their effects deadened by the surrounding soil.

To-night he had a thought of Kitty. She would be at home, at least; Andy would have no opportunities with her.

He was building up the fire he had made, which was having a struggle with the rain that came through the chimney and the surly wind that blew the smoke back into the room, when there came a rattling at the door, which at first he thought, was merely the buffeting of the wind, until its persistency convinced him that it was not.

Blown almost into his arms by the rain laden storm fury which rushed at him as be opened the door, there, with the rain pouring from her clothes, was Kitty.

Making no sound but the ejaculation at the sight of her the storm had drowned, he shut the door and, drawing her to the fire, sat her there. His heart, had sunk to a deep dejection at seeing her in such circumstances, and it was too full of dark surmises to permit him to speak. Yet somewhere there was a painful gladness that she had come to him.

'Father has turned me out,' she said piteously.

'Your father has turned you out,' he said, more as a dull fact than by way of query, the black thoughts finding confirmation in her words.

'You know Dad— how hard he is,' she said. 'I was late getting home once, or twice, and he said that if it happened again he would not let me stay in the house. And to-night he refused to let me in— told me to go away and find a home for myself, as I would not obey his orders in his.'

'Turned you out in the rain!' cried Tom, forgetting even the black thoughts in his indignation.

'The rain had not come then,' she said defensively. 'It was iny fault; I should not have gone with Andy. He took me for a drive, and laughed when I told him about Dad: and he drove so far that we were late, laughing at me when I asked him to drive back. I was a fool to go with him. He has done the same thing before; it seemed that he wanted to get me into trouble with father.'

Suddenly he hated her— hated her the more because, even with her damp hair bedraggled about a. white face, with eyes full of agitation, she looked so desirable.

To talk to him like this about Andy, the man she had allowed to supersede him! And now, when the libertine—

'But why come to me?' he asked coldly.

She looked as if he had struck her, and she took the rebuff with a piteous humbleness.

'I did not want to go to neighbours: I only thought you would let me stay until to-morrow, when I could look for work somewhere. Besides, I am afraid of him. l thought that anywhere but here he would come after me, and try to persuade me—'

'Your father!' cried Tom, incredulously.

'To— Andy,' she retorted. 'He said to me that he would wait at the slip rails in case anything happened with my father. I saw him still waiting there after Dad had told me to go. I felt suddenly afraid, and I stole round and got one of the horses. And I rode out past him, knowing he was coming after me. But because I knew he was following I came to you.''

A GREAT gladness sprang in Tom's heart, pushing out the black thoughts.  In her trouble she had come to him and avoided Andy; there was a preference in trust for him, at least, he was advancing to take her hands when the door, which he had left on the latch, burst open. It was Andy— an Andy who looked furious as well as wet.

'What's the great idea?' he asked, his attention only for Kitty. 'When I heard at Casey's that you had ridden past making this way, I thought I'd try here. What's the joke? You could have stayed at Casey's, and we could have got married there.'

Tom stepped towards him. 'Who save you permission to enter my house?' he demanded.

'I reckon I'll take permission to go anywhere where the girl I'm going to marry is.''

'You liar!' said Tom. 'You did not intend to marry her!'

Andy looked at him superciliously. 'Whatever I intended before, I intend to marry her now. I fixed arrangements with the parson at the township on my way. She's too fine a girl to marry a white-livered cur like you.'

The surge of anger the contempt stirred in Tom shifted his memories. Out of the hitherto forgotten happenings of one of those drunken nights came one vivid flash of remembrance.

It was Drover Davis talking:— 'Andy Glossop— the lead-swinging swine! If I had time I'd stop to have a cut at him! He was in my batt., but he swung the lead so well he never got into the line— finally he malingered into a back-o'-the-line job. He's one of those blokes who don't seem afeared of anything in life, but he's a dirty coward when it comes to facing death. A dirty coward! And the swine swanks and skites about the war as if he had helped win it.'

'White-livered!' retorted Tom. 'That's back in your teeth, Glossop. I was in the trenches and did my bit, whatever I felt; but what, about your war service?'

'That's a lie!' said Andy, his white face and halting rage a confession. But with the recollection of the knowledge given by Drover Davis a remarkable psychological reaction had come to Tom Madden.

The dominance that Andy all his life had exerted over him was swept away, with its foundations. He felt himself a better man than Andy, and filled with a fury for the revenge for past humiliations. And as confidence and fury swelled in him he saw it ebbing in the man before him.

'Get out of my place,' he ordered. 'If I meet you about I'll settle with you over other things: I'd rather not here, with Kitty present. But you'd better go.'

'Kitty!' cried Andy to her.

'Get out!' said Tom sharply.

He went with a curse of malicious derogation at the girl, and Tom closed the door upon him and on the storm. Kitty had not moved when Andy had called, but as Tom moved back to the fire he found her there in an attitude of expectancy.

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3: Scotch Blood

As by "Hamer"

Weekly Times (Melbourne) 5 Nov 1927

THE YOUNG man dumped his swag, seated himself on the tree stump where the rutted road capped a small rise, and looked out on the landscape like one who found delight in every tree and landmark in sight. It was one of those crisp, blue days, when the sky is merely flecked with small wispy clouds, floating like thistle-down; and an air of serenity dwelt upon the plotted green paddocks and the grey homestead on which the blue sky smiled. He sat entranced, looking slowly round; then reluctantly, as if with a sudden detirmination, rose and made his way through the white gate to the homestead.

He checked momentarily, as if changing his mind as the broad shouldered form of the old man rising from the chair on the verandah made itself evident. Perhaps there was something repellent in the fierce shaggy brows which loomed over the granite face: but the young man hesitated only a moment, and stood on the lower verandah step regarding the fanner as dumbly as the farmer looked at him.

"Well?"

The young man took almost a minute to reply. "I thought you might be having some work going," he said.

Something that appeared almost like disapointment showed in the old man as he turned away, making room for the other to step upon the verandah. He turned to regard the clothes of the young man with disfavor.

"You're from the city," he said gruffly. "They're only loafers— the fellers who come from the city."

The young man flinched and his lips moved as if with the spur of a quick retort; but he laughed.

"We'll, I'm not," he said, "and I know farm work. The way some of your fencing looked, along there, I thought you were probably in need of a man. I'm asking no favors."

His manner of saying it implied that he knew how the reference to the broken fence would sting; and he turned to go as he spoke. But the the old farmer, although his face darkened with anger, stopped him.

"Stop!" he cried, "I'll give you a chance, although, from the city cut of you, I reckon I ought to be sorry for myself. The fence does want fixing; and there's other things. But that's because the young men today have grown up into a lot of wasters who think of nothing hut chasing out and leaving their homes, so that a man has to pay every Tom, Jack and Harry that comes along to work for him. I'll try you out. What's your name?"

"Tom Smith."

The old man bore a look that held something of surprise and disappointment; and he said nothing, gazing merely at the young one with an intentness which seemed to demand the truth.

"Tom Smith is my name," said the young man, evenly responding to the look; "and I'm asking no favors. If I don't work up to specifications, sack me. I believe in a fair day's work, and when I've done it, I don't owe any man more than he owes me. I—"

He checked in what he intended to say, amazed at the look of softening which suddenly appeared in the farmer's hard-lined face, until, following the line of his eyes, he turned and found the reason of the softening in a bright-faced girl who came smilingly along the verandah. She paused, looking questioningly at Tom as she reached them.

"A man's sons go out after their own devices, leaving their father to battle through the work they should be doing, as best he can; but he may find better stuff and more affection in a stranger," he said, a caressing arm going out to greet the girl. "This is my adopted daughter, the mistress of my house, Miss Morton. Nellie,this young feller is going to have a trial on the farm; you'll fix a room for him here. His name is—"

"Tom Smith," said Tom, as the old man paused, awakening suddenly to the realisation that he was staring. A girl whose riotous hair, fresh complexion and smiling face made a picture worth looking at.

The curious bitterness at the back of Macdonald's mind which had caused him to speak in his harsh tones of his sons to a casual work seeker showed itself to be a constant characteristic which revived in a tirade as thy sat at tea that night.

"It's a rotten generation; a generation that doesn't know the meaning of duty," he said. "The young men go out after their own ends, thinking nothing of  the man who gave them life and toiled through his youth for their prosperity."

"After all, a young chap own life to think of," said Tom coolly.

"All he thinks of," said Macdonald irascibly, "is having a good time, and shirking the duties he should undertake. I had four sons. they've all gone their own way. I  didn't matter about me when it came to that. There was Alan. He was fifteen when he went—"

"Eldest son?" asked Tom, carelessly.

Macdonald stared at him questioningly.

"No. But he was the first to go.  Full of nonsense about seeing the world, and the work on the farm wasn't good enough for him. A young waster! He cleared out one morning. Went to bed as usual usual one night, and in the morning he was missing.  But he will come back some back some day, begging at my feet, with nothing to show  for the years he has wasted, wanting to share what has not helped to make."

The passion in the old man's voice almost made invective of his words.

"And I suppose you will forgive him and kill the fatted calf when he returns?" remarked Tom, with something that was insolently cool in the face of the old man's obvious heat.

"I'll—" the old man choked as he glared under his shaggy brows. "I'll— If he comes back penitent, admitting that he was wrong, I'll give him a home, because he is my son. If he shows by how he works, by how he behaves, that he is a true Macdonald, there's forgiveness for him."

"Probably he won't come back— not like that," remarked Tom. "He may have done well; when he comes back he may return like a millionaire."

"He! A waster, ne'er-do-well, adventurer!" the old man burst out.

"You ought to know, Mr Macdonald," said Tom mildly. "But, personally, I think its rough to call a boy you last knew at fifteen a ne'er-do-well; and to call anyone a waster simply because he left home doesn't seem fair. Not to me, any way. I ran away from home myself."

"What has it brought you?" demanded MacDonald in triumph. "You ran away from home— and now, when many another man has a farm of his own, you have to tramp from place to place, looking for work!"

"I am satisfied," retorted Tom. "I've seen a good bit of life; I've been to the war and done my bit. I've seen America. When I've made up my mind I've seen enough, I daresay I'll be able to settle down as well as anyone. At any rate, I've the satisfaction of knowing I've lived my own life. Mr Macdonald," he said, leaning across the table, "I left home because I had a father who thought that nobody had a right to a will but himself. He turned my mother into a submissive slave, and, when she died, I reckoned I'd had enough of the submissive slave business, and would go the way I wanted, which my father would never let me go, freely."

"You cared nothing for him— thought nothing of your duty of obedience!" thundered Macdonald, rising in anger.

"I cared for him as much as he would let me— always baulking me in what I wanted to do," retorted Tom. "Probably it was from him I got the will that made me resent his domination."

"Tush!" grunted the old man, and he left the room, abruptly, fury in him.

Nellie Morton, who, after listening to the conversation with a strained face, had followed the old man out, returned shortly with eyes almost pleading and still anxious.

"You shouldn't answer him like that, Mr Smith," she said. "It is his grievance; he was hurt by his son going away."

"What of the other sons?" asked Tom.

"They married— none of them in the way he wanted. None of them consulted him, and he was angry with them because they all insisted upon going away when they were married, and setting up on their own account."

"It seems to me the sensible thing to have done," said Tom. "With all apologies, Miss Nellie, Mr Macdonald seems like my own father; hard as flint, and wanting to bend everybody to his will or his opinion."

"You don't know the best of him," she returned eagerly. "He is goodness itself in many things; he has gentleness you can't imagine under what most people regard as his sternness. When my father died he was the only person in the district who offered me a home, although my father thought he had many better friends. I was only a little girl, and there was no money. Mr Macdonald himself had to pay even some of the funeral expenses. No real father could have been kinder than he has been to me."

"But any man would be glad to be kind— to you," said Tom, gallantly.

Only a slightly heightened color acknowledged the compliment.

"But if you want to stay with us," she said appealingly, "you mustn't contradict him as you did tonight. He doesn't stand contradiction; he is not used to it. I was surprised that he stood it tonight, without telling you to go. I suppose," she added, hurriedly, with rising color, "that you want the work you have been given— I know he wants help; it worries him to see work on the farm undone."

"As for the work," he said, "there is plenty of work for the man willing to do it. But— I want to stay."

A SINGLE DAY'S work disarmed Macdonald's gibes about the futility of men whose clothes show the cut of the city. Macdonald went down to see Tom at work on the broken fence, and grunted when he saw the workmanlike manner and the speed with which it had been tackled.

Tom was accepted as a reliable and cheerful worker with a safe knowledge of all that had to be done before a week was up; and he was a cheerful personality in the house, who gaily thrust himself to acceptance as a volunteer aid in the washing of the dishes with Nellie in the evening.

The wordy war with old Macdonald, as he grumbled about his sons, but particularly about the one who ran away from home, continued daily; even Nellie's appeals— and Nellie's fascination working upon him was obvious— could not prevent the young worker's insolently calm defences against the old man's invectives about the runaway. There seemed to be a delight in causing exasperation, sometimes. Macdonald became furious frequently, and, once or twice, it seemed that Tom would be given marching orders.

One day Nellie took his lunch down to Tom as he worked in a distant part of the farm; he had made the pretence that he did not want to interrupt his work by returning to the house, because he had grown to enjoy this sort of thing. She leaned against a tree with the light wind blowing her golden hair as he sat on a mound below her, eating.

"I wish you'd not answer him when my step-father speaks of Alan," she said wistfully. "It upsets him terribly— all these angry fits your answering puts him into."

"Do you remember this Alan?"

"Yes."

"Well, don't you think he deserves defending?"

"When I was a very little girl I remember Alan. I used to think him the nicest boy I knew. He was a sort of hero to me. But it is only because my stepfather thought more of Alan than the others that he is so bitter about his having gone. I know that; it makes me think no worse of Alan; so I do not try to defend him. It would only upset the old man."

She was surprised to find him upright suddenly, standing close to her, his face near hers.

"Do you think you would care for Alan, now, if he came back?" he asked, and then he went on, before she had overcome her startled astonishment: "Do you remember our little picnics, and our wanderings? When I was away, I thought often of the little girl who used to make me feel like some daring adventurer, when I was small; I came back to find you, here, in my home; and that was why I stayed when I was turning away. I stayed to claim that little girl."

As he caught her in his arms he knew she was his— his by old attachment and new conquest. Yet, in a little while, she was struggling against the embraces to which she had yielded with glad astonishment.

"But, Alan, all this is cruel! The poor old man is breaking his heart for his son, Alan, and yet you do not tell him who you are!"

Alan disentangled himself from his dreams, too, and his face hardened.

"He's not to know— until I am ready," he said. "I gave him his chance. A dozen times I thought of coming home, but stopped away when I thought of the sort of welcome I was likely to get. It was what I got when I did come, intending to make it up with him; and when I heard how he railed against me and what he expected of his son. I determined to pose as a stranger. He wants me to come back as a prodigal, penitent and humble. He's got a will, but I've got a will, too."

"But, Alan, down in his heart, the poor old man—"

"It's got to be my way, now," said Alan, firm-lipped. "I'm going away to get a farm, and when I come back to marry you it will be not as a prodigal or a suppliant. There's affection if he likes, but no bending of the back to him. Nellie, I love you more than anything I have known, but if you let the old man know who I am, until I am ready, I will go away at once, and never see either of you again."

Nellie saw the flinty lines on his face that reminded her of the father whose tyrrany had driven his family from him; in the midst of what should have been her happiness she was plunged into misery, for she saw in that look the bitter determination of his Scotch blood which would break other hearts and his own for its way.

OPEN STORM came on a parting that might have been only secret agony in her bosom. Incautiously, as they approached the house, they had been half-embracing as she pleaded with him to relent; and the anger of Macdonald, who had seen them, burst upon Alan as they entered. The young man faced his father, answering scorn with scorn; but suddenly the old man lost his hot fury when the younger one told him that he intended to leave at once.

"You'll want to have your wages," he said, with a sort of frozen, stern calm.

"I'm going without notice; I can do without them," said Alan, indifferently.

"You've got to have them," said Macdonald sternly, and left the room. It gave Alan a chance for a farewell to Nellie, which he took, forcing down her pleading with a reiteration of his command for silence. And then the old man was back, extending an envelope.

"The cheque is inside," he said, and added, with a touch of satire, "As you said you didn't want the money you needn't open it until you need it. You can trust me. I think you understand."

But Alan, with a sudden movement, ripped the envelope and opened the cheque.

"Five hundred pounds!" he exclaimed.

"It will give you a chance to make a start," said the old man, his granite face and beetling brows as stern as ever. "Then this means you know—"

"I knew," said his father, fiercely, "from the moment I saw you sitting on that stump in front, trying to make up your mind to come in. I have been waiting for you to come to me— admit you were wrong— say you were sorry—"

"I was not wrong!" retorted Alan tempestuously. He tore the cheque to little pieces, and then, as they dropped, clawing at his pockets, dragged out a bank deposit book. "I did not come back because I was a broken prodigal, but because I wanted to see you again. Home called me; and when I saw how hard you still were, I stayed, hoping you'd change. I sold out a prosperous business to come back. See here!" The open page of the bank-book showed a four-figure balance.

The two men glared at one another silently for a moment, then moved, Alan towards the door, the other making way for him.

"Oh, you two damned fools!" Nellie's agonised cry poured like a douch of water upon the fire of their passion of self will. The stiffness of their pride in it still held— Alan demanding a recognition that he had been right; his father demanding penitence. But now Alan's eyes fell softly upon the cheque fragments on the floor. Stooping, he picked them up.

"I won't want to cash this," he said, "but I'll keep these, father— to remind me that you wanted to give it to me. It showed—"

"Alan!"

Alan caught the old man as he tottered into his arms, broken by the effort of will his Scotch blood had demanded during the weeks that had passed.

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4: The Hope Beyond the Horizon

As by "Hamer"

Weekly Times (Melbourne) 7 June 1930

"DUST to dust, hashes to hashes..." In an awed, reverent voice the old man spoke the words, one hand guiding the spade which piled back the earth into the shallow grave, the other holding the hand of a wonder-eyed child, her face looking up questioningly at his lowered one. And the sun spread the amber of its waking glory on the rocks and shrubs around them.

Old Sam had been taking his daily view of the wide, people-less domain that was his kingdom. This morning look-out had become a rite with him; to climb the craggy bluff above his hut just after the sun had risen, and look around on the vast emptiness.

Somewhere among the multitude of books that littered his habitation he had discovered the phrase. "There is hope beyond the horizon," had pounced upon it, as a fossicker might pounce upon some rare stone found in the sand, and treasured it. What meaning it should have for him, who by his own choice had selected this lonely habitation in the wilderness, because all he wanted was loneliness, he could not have explained; there was something in the words that gave serenity to his soul.

He started as his keen eyes, looking east, struck a movement in the solitude. Yes, there was something there. Shading his eyes with his hands, he made sure of that. He made a movement to descend out of observation, full of the repugnance for human companionship that had made a hat ter of him; but something peculiar about the far figure held him.

When he did descend it was in a hurry, to harness an amazed horse to a dilapidated buggy, both only used for his rare four days' trip to the nearest township for stores. and the books which had become a passion with him.

It was a woman he found lying in the scrub, in a fainting condition, a small child whimpering be side her. The woman partially revived as he forced water between her lips, but there was no time for questioning. He bundled his salvage of the desert into his buggy.

They were rough, awkward hands that made her comfortable upon his own hessian bed, and bathed her forehead and her lips with water. When, with a quivering sigh of weariness, the woman opened her eyes to a real know ledge of her surroundings, it was to see an old man spreading jam on damper for the little girl, assuring her that her mother would be well soon. He turned quickly at the sigh; the child, jammy of fingers, rushed to her.

"You'll be all right, missus," he said gently. "You want to lie still and rest; you're all done in. Beats me how you came to be right out here."

"I was at the Coollalloo home stead— Mr Campbell's," she said. "I wanted to get to Marantoo on my way to Sydney."

"You came the wrong way," he commented.

"I lost myself. My horse knocked up, and fell; and I tried to get somewhere, carrying little Lucy. All my water went— I had brough some, but Lucy had to have it."

Old Sam felt a glow— that's what a mother would do, give her child the water she needed badly herself. It explained the fine condition of the child, while the mother was exhausted.

"You Mrs Campbell?" he asked.

"Oh, no! Thank God, no!" she said with a shudder, "I went there as housekeeper— Mrs Campbell was away."

"I heard so," grunted Sam. "Campbell's no good, they tell me."

"I had to leave," she said, eagerly. "I took a horse, and got away earjy one morning. It seems to me a week ago."

Sam presently tiptoed out. Food had brought drowsiness to the woman; and the child, too, standing up, drooped to sleep over the bed. He lifted her up, gently, and placed her beside the sleeping mother.

Strangely, he felt no resentment at this intrusion on his solitude., It would mean, of course, a trip into Marantoo, when the woman and her child were fit to travel; but be was not resentful even of that trouble. It would be some time, anyway, before that became necessary: and Sam busied himself making a fresh camp for him self outside the hut. Occasionally he went to the door and lookof. in with a puzzled, searching gaze at the slumberers.

Presently he heard a movement, and found the child beside him.

"Is we going to live here?" she asked.

"For a while. Mummy's very tired," he answered.

"I like dis place." said the child, simply.

Sam, forgetting his hatter principles, glowed. The old hermit and the child were fast friends when the woman woke again.

Alice Grant was her name, she told him. The name conveyed nothing to him. but he did not bother asking her questions. He was prepared to accept these visitors without question, and put aside the thought of even referring to the time when they should move on. For as long as these waifs of the wilderness needed shelter it was theirs. It was obvious that it would be for a long time. Even when Alice had recovered from the severity of her exhaustion, a languidness remained, that grew instead of diminishing.

"You go up that hill every morning?" she asked him one day. The child, who had made herself the old man's companion, had wriggled out of bed, and the woman, rising, too, had followed to the door, and seen them preparing to set off.

"Yes, missus," he said, shamed into an explanation. "There's a view up there." "I'd like to see It." The climb exhausted her; and she wondered, as she looked, what was the appeal of the vast wilderness around them.

"I allus say," said the old man, " 'There's hope beyond the horizon.' "

"Hope beyond the horizon!" She echoed it with a queer, bitter laugh, but the queerness was part sickness, for she almost collapsed.

Very tenderly he helped her down, got her to lie down on the bed, and brought her warm tea.

"I had no call to allow you to make that climb, missus," he said, staring at her pale face, when she had partially recovered. "Don't call me missus— call me Alice. I'm not a missus— I'm not married, and I've no right to impose upon you who've been so good to me."

She spoke with a bitter self-accusing impetuosity.

"It don't make no difference," he mumbled, but his look went to the pretty wide-eyed child.

"Oh, it makes so much difference!" she cried, sobs in her throat. "If you will only let me stay here until I am a little stronger— if I ever get stronger— and able to work for little Lucy to train her so as she won't be what I have been."

"Don't you talk, missus; you just lie still. There's no call to think of ever leaving here till you're ready."

"But I must talk," she went on hysterically. "I have to talk."

He led Lucy to the door and pointed out flowers in the near shrubs that she might pick. Then he came back.

"I don't want Lucy to be dragged up to what I was dragged up," said Alice. Grant. "I want her to have a chance to be clean. My mother ran away from her husband because she hated the country; and the man she went away with was a brute who taught her that wrong living was the natural thing. I was brought up to think that, living in dens in Sydney. I wasn't even ashamed of the life I've been taught to live; not even when I gave it up for my man. But he went, like the others, and then there was Lucy."

"Hush, hush, hush!" said the embarrassed old man. "You don't want to tell me this. It's a sweet little girl, and she'll be all right."

"I want her to have a chance— to be clean. That's why I got away from it all; I took a chance of going to Campbell's as house keeper, to give her a clean coun try life. I wondered why a woman like me could get the job so easily— until I got there!" she finished bitterly

"So you left him," said Sam. understanding. "There's always hope. When you get back to Sydney—"

"That'll be the end of me! Sam, I haven't got no morals; I'll go the way I've been taught to go. The wish to save my Lucy from going that way is the only good thing about me." She turned her head over, into her arm, weeping; and old Sam, embarrassed, patted her shoulder awkwardly. "Things'll sort out," he said. "There's hope beyond the horizon, missus." Then he went out. He called Lucy to him, and to gether they went down into the gully.

"Mummy, Mister Sam's been finding pretty pink stones like this in the water!" she cried excitedly as they returned.

But Alice Grant was indifferent, and hardly conscious, as she ate the food the old man had prepared. He was disturbed. Even her fleeting ideas of the necessity of medical help caused him to harness his horse to the buggy; but only to un harness it again after a look at the woman. The jolting journey would be too much for her; he could not leave her— or the child— alone whilst he went for aid.

Alice woke up that, night to find Sam sitting on a box, with a tin in his hand, staring at her. She must have put Lucy to sleep beside her; she did not remember the child coming there.

"Look!" cried Sam, spilling the contents of the tin into his hand so that the feeble lamp-glow shone upon It, when he saw her eyes opened and flxed upon him. "That's gold! It's nothing to me. I've only worked it for something to do, and I've only used the few grains I needed to buy stores and books. If I'd let it be known how much there was, here, there'd have been a rush."

She merely stared at him, her eyes strangely bright, but uncomprehending. "See what I mean," he said, approaching her so that she might see the gold better. "No need for you to worry about little Lucy. You can send her to good schools, see?"

She sat up suddenly and seized his sleeve, staring at him.

"You are my father, aren't you?" she almost screamed. His heart gave a leap with a mighty hope. In an instant a vision came back to him of the empty home, the agony of the desertion which had made him a lover of solitude, filled him with an aversion for meeting his kind, after his unavailing search for his errant wife, to claim at the least his daughter. And, now—

"What was your mother's name? Who was the man who— went with her?" he asked eagerly.

"She was Lucy, like my baby," said Alice Grant, as eagerly; "the man was William Forster."

Old Sam's heart sank. Even as he had sought vainly for familiarity of feature in the faces of this woman and her child, so was there nothing to give him hope in these unfamiliar names. And yet— And yet here was a woman who in her circumstances might easily be his daughter, and a child, grown dear to his old heart in a few days, who might be blood of his blood. Here he could solace his mind with the thought of re clamation from the wreckage that people make of life. Not here in the wilderness, he realised— swiftly he visualised pictures of a comfortable homestead with a happy girl romping about it, growing to healthy womanhood.

"Alice, the name of the wife who deserted me was Lucy," he said.

"Father!" she cried. He was alarmed by her panting as she clung to him. Disengaging himself, he lifted the sleeping child, who patted his chest happily, half waking, whispering: "Am I going to sleep in oo bed?" contentedly.

And then he came back to find the dying woman with arms outspread to the father she thought she had found.

HE HAD hoped that he could do it all before the child arose, but Lucy woke too soon. The buggy was packed with a few books grown precious, the store of gold for which he had never anticipated use, and the few things needed for their journey; the body of the woman lay in the grave he had dug during the grey hours of morning.

"Mummy is very, very tired," he had explained gravely, when the child had come to him. "She is fast asleep, and we must not disturb her. You and I must go away, and make a nice home where she can come to us, when she wakes; but we must cover her over with earth so that the flies cannot bite her."

He invented the excuse for the burial quickly, the baby accepting it with grave, trusting eyes. And in them he saw visions of the future, the hope beyond the horizon that had come to him. And that hope gleamed brightly a, repeating the memorised words of the service, he said, reverently, "Dust to dust, hashes to hashes," over the remains of what his daughter might have been.

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5: The Blind

Sydney Mail 12 Aug 1931

A Story of the Western Front

THE German outbreak of hate upon a quiet, sunshiny, early spring day was like a sacrilege; but Fritz had a habit of paying attention to 'F' track, and I knew when I ducked down as the shell-scream sounded overhead, and the splintered duckboard leapt up in front of me in an upheaval of mud and smoke, that there would be ten minutes or so of this.

Jumping down into an old trench that traversed the track, I sprinted along it, head down, as the other shells came, gave an extra burst across a patch of open ground to the disused dugout, and burst in, glad for shelter which only a direct hit would render ineffective. In the change from the light outside to the darkness of the place I nearly tripped over what was lying on the floor.

It unnerved me when I saw who it was. Gorman— Lieutenant Gorman, M.C. (with bar), D.C.M., and battalion daredevil— thrown down on the ground and shaking as I have seen some squibs who could not stand up against shellfire. It was more unnerving than the shells themselves to see a man lose control of himself in a helpless frenzy; with a man like Gorman the discomfort of it was greater than with others from whom the weakness might be expected.

'Hey, what's the matter?' I asked sympathetically, kneeling down and putting my hand on his shoulders. As if he were aware of my presence for the first time he scrambled to his feet. There was a glisten as of tears on his face, and in his hand a letter was clenched.

'It's you!' he cried. 'There's nothing wrong with me— did you think it was nerves? It's just a letter from home— from my— wife! Hang her, she will write to me!'

Gorman and I had known one another back in Sydney, and I knew of his bitterness. My surprise was to find it affecting him in a way that induced tears. Gorman's marriage had been an event of the time in Sydney.

I had never met his wife, but she had had a reputation as a brilliant society girl, just as Howard Gorman had himself been one of the most spectacular of the young men-about-town. The mating was one of sparkling effervescence— and the union was effervescent. In only a few months Gorman was a notable figure in the city bars and clubrooms, full of cynicisms about women, careless and debonair.

NOBODY had ever had an idea that Gorman cared about the separation. Nobody believed that Gorman cared about anything.

'I'm damn sorry you caught me behaving like a kid,' he said, almost resentfully.

'I was dodging the shells,' I explained apologetically. The shrieks and crashes they made as they fell still sounded without.

'I wouldn't like anyone to know—'

'Of course not. That's all right,' I assured him, and then added, 'It surprised me! I didn't think that anything worried you.'

'It worries me,' he said with a savage earnestness. 'I've always tried to kid myself that nothing matters, and it only seems to make them matter all the more. Blast these women! They take a man and try to twist his nature— make him the thing they would like rather than what he is. And it is only to have the satisfaction of a personal triumph. Hearts! They have none!'

His obvious desire, now he had spoken, to extend his confidences embarrassed me. I went to the entrance of the dugout and looked out— cautiously— at the smudges the desultory shell-bursts made on the scarred landscape. But he followed and stood beside me. 'She will write to me— she won't let me forget; and all the time God knows what she's doing! And listen to the sort of thing she says to me;' he said, holding up the letter, as it 'was folded, to let the light fall upon it.

'I don't like your sneers about Percy Knight. What if he did wait for his commission before going overseas? He has some qualities which you would do well to cultivate. You rushed into the war because it's just the sort of thing you like, with your love of .excitement, your love of showing how much further you can go than the other man. He did not go because he liked it, but did it as a duty. And your suspicions—'

He skipped quickly.

'You are blind— with your self-confidence, your strength; you think that that is all that matters. It doesn't, Howard; believe me, it doesn't. Some day, although I wish no harm to you, you may be reduced to weakness and impotence, and then you will learn better wisdom.'

He broke off his reading with a hectic, cynical laugh. 'And then— religion! From her— who is talking of coming over to England as a voluntary worker— now that Knight is over here! Knight, the man who, when he did enlist, hung on waiting for his commission, which better men have earned in the line.'

He finished up with an oath disgracing all women, and suddenly tore the letter to fragments, scattering them to the wind as blindly he walked out, heedless of the still falling shells. As though he hoped that a shell-piece would get him.

Strangely we get new angles upon human affairs, and here was one for me: Gorman the self-confident, after all, wore that apparent confidence as a mask, just as he wore a careless gaiety to conceal what he felt, to cover his lack of confidence— his lack of confidence in himself, in morality, in Iris wife. It was the first time that I had known that there was any connection at all, except as fellow-officers, between Lieutenant Knight already, after only a few weeks, a jest in the battalion— and Gorman; that the popular idol should be jealous of the unpopular new arrival seemed a grotesque joke.

How far the jealousy was justified I could not say. Gorman debonairly seeking light love adventures to hide the hurt in his heart may have hopelessly alienated his wife, even driven her to reprisals. With the revelation of his real feeling there was tragedy in it all. I pitied Gorman for the tumult that must be within him, for the strain he suffered in hiding it under the mask of lightness. It was probably a sympathy born of his confidences that brought us more together, although he never mentioned his wife again when we spoke together.

We went back a little for a spell and training, and the villages within reach were friendly and inviting. It was one night when I was on my way back from one of them where I had made friends that, slightly wine-weary, I threw myself down on a hedge bank. There was a sibilant sound of low voices in the field behind me, but that did not worry me until the voices rose.

'M'sieur, you know that my fiancé is at the front, fighting for France. It would not be true,' said a protesting girl's voice.

'What does it matter, Marie?'

With a start I recognised Gorman's voice. 'He may be killed— we may all be dead in a few weeks. In a time like this it is for us to take what joys of life we can. I thought you liked me.'

'Oh, m'sieur, I have liked you much— so much. I have liked to talk to you— although you are in other armies you are a comrade of my Francois—'

I got up as noisily as possible and strode, ringing my boots into the ground, into the moonlight on the road. I could not stay and listen to Gorman's passionate and cynical pleading; it sickened me slightly to detect a weakening in the girl's voice. It was none of my business; but I could not help but feel sorry for Francois— and my own much-battered ideal, still preserved in its wreckage, of the moral staunchness o women.

My premonitions were disappointed by a quick step behind me and a hail from Gorman; loyalty to Francois had prevailed, then. Gorman took stride with me, and suddenly began to whistle.

'You seem happy,' I remarked.

'Happy? I'm glad— light-hearted. I'm know there's something besides sham in the conventions we maintain about the goodness of women. There's some of them, at all events....'

He let his words trail off.

He was in charge of our post when, three days later, we took over the line, and the boys unanimously were delighted.

'He'll probably get us into something, but he knows the game, and doesn't care a damn,' said Sam Sharp.

I smiled grimly when I thought of what I knew about him, and how that mask of his deceived everyone. The joke of the night was that the fighting patrol was going out under Lieutenant Knight. It seemed that we had taken over a silent front; there was an almost unearthly silence up and down the whole line as the little bunch of adventurers halted at our strongpost and Gorman scrambled out to show the gap through the wire in front.

'D'yer like our contract, goin' out with this?' said one of the party, straggling to exchange a word with me.

'We've been enjoyin' the joke,' I answered.

'It's a joke to them as can afford to laugh,' he retorted. 'I hope the angry man stays asleep.'

But the angry man woke suddenly. Whatever had happened out there, the awakening was one of a hectic fury; a rattle of machine-guns at first, and then an avalanche of pouring shells, making an inferno in the ground in front of us, with the Verey lights soaring up snakily amongst the sprays of the flying red-hot shell-pieces. And of course our artillery burst into the fray.

It seemed to me that there was a gleam of malicious triumph in the eye of Gorman as he peered out into the darkness. Knight was there. The frenzy did not die down. The Germans were evidently alarmed about the possibility of an attack, and kept a barrage before their trenches. Out of the maelstrom figures came, pantingly, stooping as they ran, and dropped down into the trench for cover.

'All here? Where's Lieutenant Knight?' demanded Gorman.

'Out there somewhere,' said the patrol sergeant. 'It became hot suddenly, and we went down where we could; then, when the shelling kept up, I passed the word to get back as we could. Didn't sight Lieutenant Knight. Reckoned he had got back early.'

There was no disguise to the contempt in his voice. Gorman resumed his staring into the shell-shattered darkness.

'You'd better get out and look for him,' he said.

'When the shells stop. I don't know why they want to send mugs on games like ours. It was him tripping started this business going. And he must cry out as he falls!' said the sergeant peevishly.

'This is going to last,' said Gorman. 'The enemy's nervy, and there may be another strafe at any time. The poor cow won't have any chance then. We'll have to get him in whilst the shells are few. I'm going,' he concluded quietly. 'I'll take four men.'

With a grumble the sergeant of the fighting patrol came, too. It was ticklish work creeping out with the utmost caution, not knowing when we might touch the hairspring that would buy another full drenching of shells. But we found Knight groaning in a shell-hole. Peremptorily Gorman ordered him to suppress the sounds that had led us to him.

Gorman touched my arm and detained me as the others commenced to carry Knight back. I saw the point— the inadvisability of making too big a bunch that might show up under a chance Verey light. We followed slowly after we had given the others a start.

There was a clang of wire, sharply distinct. One of the carriers had evidently caught his foot on a loose wire. A dozen Verey lights shot into the air, with the coloured signals of the Germans for artillery.

The avalanche was upon us again; but I had hardly time to think of it, and decide upon a dash for the trench, before the ground rose before us with a roar. The hot shell-burst scorched my face even as I marvelled that I was not hit. But Gorman staggered back against me, and had to be held upright. He swept his hand across his face, and something dark glistened across the pallor as he dropped it.

'My God, it's dark! I can't see!' whispered Gorman.

How we got back is a mystery; there remains with me a nightmare haziness of pushing on through the shells-fall, guiding the stumbling steps of Gorman before me, with thoughts in my mind of how he had hated Knight, but had saved him— and now the man who had been a pattern of care-freeness was blind— perhaps for good! His wife had said he was blind, but she had surely never thought of this fate for him.

WHEN I myself got to London and was allowed out of hospital it was natural to look up Gorman. It was not difficult to trace him; he was not expected to recover his sight, and was under training at St. Dunstan's to overcome the handicap that had fallen upon him.

By an arrangement made sometimes with men in his predicament he was living in an Australian household in London; a voluntary nurse was there to look after him. I had been prepared to be shocked at the sight of a man like Gorman made helpless by blindness, but I found him cheerful, a bandage still over his eyes.

'They'll try experiments— they think they can still make me see a little,' he said. 'It's all a delusion, of course. But somehow I've grown used to the idea. I don't seem to mind; there's always a way of finding happiness if. a man's contented.'

I wondered whether this was some more of his old flamboyance, concealing his real hurt.

'It's all my nurse,' he smiled, and his hand groped for that of the V.A.D. who was smoothing the cushions behind his head preparatory to leaving him. 'This is an army friend— and I knew him in Sydney— Miss Shaw,' he said. 'We're going to be married— when my wife gives me a chance.' He said it with a laugh, as of an impossibility.

'He's always saying such things about his wife. I'm sure she can't be all he says?' said the nurse questioningly.

'I did not know her,' I said. It seemed to be a relief to her; after all, it is not pleasant for a woman who is carrying on a flirtation with a man, even if a jesting one, to meet a friend of his wife's.

'It's not fair saying that,' said Gorman. 'I was bitter with the thought of blindness, and my wife had said that I deserved to be crippled so that I would not be so over-confident. I've not said anything against my wife for ages— my nurse has taught me not to. I don't even hate her now. She has her point of view, no doubt; and, anyway, she doesn't go on worrying me with her letters. She couldn't help being cold— it was her nature; she didn't have the warm sympathy of the dear lady who has been looking after me.'

The nurse laughed lightly and went out with a blush A on her cheek, and Gorman leaned forward, gripping my arm.

'Harold, that woman really cares for me, I believe,' he said eagerly. 'Oh, of course I'm not going, in cold earnest, to ask a woman to marry a blind man; but I believe that, blind and all, she would marry me if I get a divorce. It used to drive me mad to think of my wife going to some other man, but now I am glad. For I may get back my sight, and then—'

There was an exalted look upon his face.

'It is a fine thing meeting a woman like that. A woman who can feel. It softens their natures— suffering; and she tells me she has suffered. What do you think of her?'

'A fine-looking woman; and she looks sympathetic.'

'Well, what's wrong with her?' He challenged something dubious in my voice.

'It struck me there was something artificial in her voice,' I said. 'That had jarred me a little.'

He was about to protest when in the sound of a medley of voices at the door we heard the name 'Lieutenant Knight' announced, and, limping considerably, Knight strode over the room to grip Gorman's hand.

'I've written to thank you,' he cried, 'but I had to come directly I could. My leg was a regular mess, and I'm only just allowed out any distance; but for you I might not have been alive at all. There's another thing—'

He looked dubiously at me and I arose.

'A personal friend of mine; stay, please,' Gorman said.

'Well,' said Knight desperately, 'I had to get this off my chest. I was in love with your wife. I really thought you were a sort of waster; had married and left her. But, as a fact, she loved you. When I tried to make love to her she spoke scornfully because you had gone to the war and I was staying at home— "taking advantage of your absence," she said. 'So I enlisted— I know I had to make myself level with you to have any chance. I was a failure, I'm afraid; and now, of course, I have given up all thought—'

'My wife,' began Gorman; but there was a light step in the room. It was the nurse returning. Knight rose at the sound, turning in its direction.

'My God! Mrs. Gorman!' he cried.

Gorman leaped to his feet trembling.

'My wife— here?'

'Your nurse,' she corrected; and then she burst out, 'I had to be your nurse; there was no one else I could allow to be that. I have come to England to be near in case anything should happen to you; but when I inquired about you I heard you spoke so bitterly about me that I made up my mind to be some one else. I disguised my voice to hide my real identity from you. I was afraid of being sent away. Oh, Howard, ever since we married I have wanted to nurse you— to look after you; but you were so proud of your strength, so indifferent!'

A light of ecstasy was on Gorman's face as his arms reached towards her. Knight nudged my elbow and together we went out, leaving them to their happiness.

_______________

6: Locksley is Out

World's News (Sydney) 4 July 1934

FOR the first time in two years and five months Locksley heard the jarring rasp of heavy steel locks, the clang of cumbersome doors, without a feeling of oppression. They were shutting behind him to-day, not closing him in. With a touch of pity for those who had to remain, he heard the heavy, hopeless shuffle of gaol boots in the court, a sound that, like the dull metal clangings, and the rattle now and then of a chain or a tin, was the music of the Sahara of existence a prison life means.

Two years and five months he had borne it. He was lucky to get out so soon. Shooting at policemen is a sport the law does not encourage; and although he had not actually done the shooting proved against him to the satisfaction of the Law, he had a knowledge of having sufficiently earned his punishment that caused him to shrug his shoulders at the verdict. Looking back over the wilderness of time the 29 months had been, he remembered the hurt he had felt being charged with a crime that, as a clever criminal, he regarded as folly.

The prison chaplain was present to give him a parting hand-shake.

"I'm glad you've got your release, Locksley," he said, heartily. "You'll make good use of it, I think, for you're a man of ability. If there's anything I can do for you, IH be glad to do it. You've only got to go straight."

"I'll go straight, all right," said Locksley. He smiled; but there was something at the back of the look on the well-formed young face that baffled the padre. Something that was almost mocking. It had baffled the gaol comforter often.  Locksley made a gesture that took in the whole gaol building.

"I thought this was a morgue when first I came here; I've found out it's a hospital."

"That's a good way to look at it," said the chaplain, eagerly.

"I ought to thank the people who sent me here, really," said Locksley with a laugh. Again the chaplain got that sense of mockery; there might be a grim second meaning behind the words.

"You should not entertain any hard feelings against anyone— it gets you nowhere," advised the chaplain, nervously.

Locksley walked out into the free sunshine, the sunshine which was not the limited thing of the gaol, a reminder of the walls that shut the men in, of the dreariness of the slow-passing days.

"He's a good man, really," said the chaplain to the chief warder, mentally following Locksley as he strode into his freedom. "A man with an adventurous spirit and brains, who was caught by criminal influences when he was young. You found him a model prisoner didn't you, Martin?"

"Too model," returned the chief warden drily. "I like the man, and , I did my best for him, partly because I know he was .pooled over the charge that brought him here. Everybody felt that; that's the reason he got the big cut in his sentence that and the help he gave in the gaol mutiny, on top of his good conduct. But I've always had the feeling that he's been deliberately laying himself out to get out quickly; and I wouldn't like to be in the shoes of those who pooled him, now."

"I think he's above that spirit," said the chaplain stoutly. But he knew it was the spirit of the underworld, and remembered the mockery that always seemed to be at the back of all Locksley said.

The chaplain had doubts.

THERE WERE no doubts at all about other people who were interested in the release of Locksley. A woman, reclining on a couch in a Darlinghurst flat reading a story in a film magazine, the condensation of a talkie story which gave her a satisfactory comparison with her own career, looked up indifferently as a man entered.

"You've been on the spots," she commented querulously. "You're a fool to go on like that. What's the matter, anyway? You look upset."

"Locksley's out!" he said, sharply.

"Oh, don't be an idiot! He had four years to go."

"He's out, I tell you. I thought that big dee, Thompson, was joking myself, when he told me, but he was dead serious. And Bluey Barton said he had seen him this morning."

The woman swung herself off the couch and dropped on to a chair at the table. "You brought some lager home, didn't you?" she demanded. "Open a bottle. What's your hand shaking for like that— even if Locksley is out?"

He grunted a reply as he operated the bottle-opener; it was not until she had moistened her lips, that seemed suddenly dry, that she uttered a demand for more information.

"Thompson hailed me as I was going along William Street this morning. 'I've got some information that will interest you, Fred,' he says. 'They're letting Locksley out.' He was grinning at me in that way he's got. 'What's the joke?' I asked. 'There's no joke unless you can see one in it; and you can't do that, I bet,' he said. 'It'll be no joke to us, either, if you people start making ructions.' "

"And what about Bluey?"

"Bluey's seen him. Nearly ran right into him when he was going to cross King Street, but saw him in time. We had a couple of drinks together, and Bluey said he's getting out— this very day. It's a damned good idea, I think."

The woman rose abruptly and left the flat; when she returned the man had opened a second bottle.

"You don't even drink fair," she said, moving the bottle to her place at the table; "and ladling the beer in won't do any good. I've rung up Billy, telling him to come at once. How was he looking— Jack, I mean?"

"Very fit, Bluey said; and clobbered up to the nines. He seemed to be smiling to himself."

As he spoke Fred moved to the door to fasten the snip, nervously, on the Yale lock. The woman, looked up, surprised, and laughed at his nervousness. It was not long before he had to release the snip again, after challenging through the panels the man whose sharp ring followed on the sound of quick footsteps outside. With hardly a greeting the newcomer, a biggish man, pushed into the flat.

"What's this about Locksley?" he demanded.

They began to tell him whilst Fred snipped the door again.

"So Bluey's done the cocktail act, eh? And how about you, too?"

"I'm going to follow Bluey's example. It's not Locksley only; Sydney's played out as far as I'm concerned, and its liable to become too hot at any time— without Locksley. Just as well to go while the going's good. Eve's going with me."

"Who said?" put in Eve sharplv. "If Sydney's got too hot, it's because none of you have the brains Jack had. He could plan things and bring us through clean. Look at that bank haul! It's still an unsolved mystery as far as the police are concerned. If Jack's ready to get back to business again, it's the best thing that could happen to the lot of us."

The newcomer looked at her scornfully.

"You're pretty cute in lots of ways, Eve," he said, directly, "but you're shallow. You haven't any real brains at all. You don't think you could put it over a man like Jack again, do you? And you don't think a man like him would put himself in a position to be let in a second time? If you're gambling on the idea that Locksley doesn't know the full strength of the put-away, forget it. When I was doing my stretch I knew just as much of what was going on as if I was out. Jack knows. He knows all about you and Fred here; he knows that it was Bluey who fired his gun, which he had too much sense to take out of his flat himself; and he knows that it could have only been through a put-away that the business was fitted on him. You got your preference for Fred here"— his voice was scornful— "and you thought it convenient to get him out of the way; and we schemed to get hold of that bank loot. It seemed natural that he'd drop out a word about it when he was in— if he didn't suspect. The scheme failed because he guessed, even at the start— before he had a chance to hear about you two coming together. It's no good our kidding ourselves. He knows."

An oppressive silence fell upon the flat. Fred flicked his glass nervously with his finger-nail.

"What are you going to do?" he demanded.

"Me? I'm staying. I don't come into the affair like you two and Bluey. With you all gone, it'll look all the better for me if I stay. I'll play fair. I want my share of that bank stuff, and I'll try to get yours, too, for you. I'll get what I can; and, if you get out, it's whacks between us whatever comes my way."

"You'll get it!" jeered Fred.

"I'll get it, all right," retorted Billy, confidently. "I'm not afraid of Locksley. He plays fair, anyway; I don't believe he meant to do us out of our shares; it was only he was afraid we'd be flashing the money, and let the cat out of the bag. He's got nothing on me, and if I don't get what's due to me, I can blow the gaff on that bank stunt."

"And pool us all!" cried Fred fiercely. "He was in the background in that affair, though he got the loot—"

The sound of the heavy footfall on the landing without hushed the three into a tense silence. Billy sprang to his feet, with pale face, and made towards the inner rooms. The footfall passed, mounting further stairs. Eve laughed spitefully, a little hysterically, as she turned towards Billy, standing hesitant in the bedroom doorway.

"You're not frightened of Locksley!" she jeered.

"I don't want him, to find me with you two; that would spoil my plan," he said.

"We're all scared of Locksley— scared stiff," said Fred grimly.

AMIDST THE rush of home-pouring citizens, Locksley walked up and down King-street. It was carnival to him, this close touch with people free, or moderately free, to go where they choose, and do what they pleased; but as he enjoyed a sensation from which he had been barred for two and a half years, his keen eyes scrutinised everybody who passed, and made a search of the crowded trams. His lazy movements at last were galvanised, intoswift swift action as he passed through a stream of people and faced a girl.

"Mary," he said, "I've been waiting in the hope of finding you."

The girl, astonished; gasped "You? You!"

"Yes! I'm free," he said, moving her out of the stream towards the edge of the pavement. "I've been looking for old friends, but they seem all to have sought new locations. So I put in a good bit of the day in the Gardens— beautiful place; I never noticed it before— satisfied that I might run across you to-night. You'd be able to tell me where I could find your brother Fred."

She stared at him terrified. And then she realised what he was saying.

"I'm living at— at Kensington," she said.

"Meaning that you don't see brother Fred often?" he said, laughing. "But you know where I can find him. I'm prepared to hear you say you won't tell me. Frightened of my finding out something I know already."

"I didn't expect to see you so soon," she said, desperately changing the conversation.

"I've had twenty-nine months of it— it was quite long enough."

"You look— well," she said confusedly conscious that his laugh showed that he saw something grimly humorous in her remark. "Now its over you're not going back— to all that? You're too good for it!"

"You are still keeping to your job," he commented.

"Of course," she returned. "Honest work is the only thing for me, and I'll keep to it."

"Good girl! And you're right. It's a sordid business— dishonesty. But brother Fred— you stuck to him like a Briton. Where is he, Mary?"

"I don't see him often," she said quickly. "If you say the old life is sordid and you know— what has happened— you don't want to worry about them."

"There's something I owe them. I came to put it right," he said. She saw the mockery in his eyes and read the most dangerous meaning in it.

"Why not leave them alone!" she appealed. "A man like you should be able to start afresh, and make good instead of bringing more trouble upon yourself. That's what it means. Revenge is a cheap thing."

"Not my revenge," he said. "It will surprise you when you hear about it— if you hear about it."

She began to move up the street, and he walked beside her, apparently abandoning the effort to obtain her brother's address. His greater concern was to secure from her a promise to meet him during her lunch hour next day. It alarmed her when, a Kensington tram coming along, he entered it with her; but relief came when, for himself, he bought merely a single-section ticket. He dropped off at the next stop.

As she turned away, he hailed a "coasting", taxi and sprang in. That taxi was trailing slowly on her footsteps as she left the tram at Darlinghurst.

Panic came to Fred and Eve with the receipt of Mary's telephone message. It had been growing ever since Billy had left them, until the instinct of flight became a desperate obsession.

Their packing had been done and they were making a last survey of the flat when a footfall outside and the sharp "b-rrr" of the door-bell brought them to a tense stillness. The bell rasped again, and a hand pummelled the door panels.

"In there, Eve?"

"It's him!" whispered Fred. "We're trapped."

"There's the window," Eve whispered back. "Drop me on the roof of the shop verandahs, and the bags after me. There's Lucy's flat, two doors up. We can get out through that."

Every rasp of the door-bell jolted Fred's heart. He was glad when he was able to join Eve on the verandah roof.

Almost at that moment Locksley decided to relinquish his beating on the door.

He went in search of Billy Arthur. When he found him, he was not welcome.

"Keep out, damn you!" he cried "You're not coming in here."

Locksley had his foot in the doorway, and, held the pressure on his side.

"What's the idea, Billy? Just a few words— that's all I want with you. And I can't say them out here, so I'm coming in."

"You're not coming in. This is my place, and you keep out," vociferated Arthur.

The gathering of curious onlookers from the other flats irritated Locksley. He gave a vigorous thrust, which happened to catch Arthur off his balance, and pushed his way in. The door slammed sharply between him and the onlookers, who caught the wrankle of voices, something that sounded like a scuffle and the sound of two quick shots. Then again a scuffle.

It was Locksley who opened the door when Detective Thompson and the policeman raced out of the lift towards it. He was slightly dishevelled, but calm, but within Arthur was gasping on the couch, his lips bleeding slightly.

"He fired at me. I only came to see him, but he grabbed his revolver directly I entered. I had to wrestle with him."

"I told him to get out, and he wouldn't go," said Arthur.

"You'll have to come to the station, both of you," Thompson said. "It's all very well to joke, Locksley, but it's just as well to cut it out. You're not a bad fellow, and it's to your advantage to go straight. The other game leads nowhere."

There was nothing to hold Locksley upon; hoping for grace himself, Arthur declined to lay any charge. But Arthur himself was charged upon the use and unlawful possession of firearms, and when the bail was stated Locksley surprised the police by producing a roll of notes and offering the sum.

"I don't want bail," cried Arthur definitely. "I'd sooner stay here."

"Afraid of you, Locksley," said Thompson.

It took Locksley a little wild taxi travelling to evade the shadows put upon his trail; but in due course he was back at the flats where he had sought Fred and Eve.

"The Walkers in?" he asked the caretaker.

"Don't know. Miss Walker has just gone up."

There was no lift, but Locksley went up the stairs three at a time, and, finding the flat door opened, walked right in. Mary, surveying the empty flat with astonishment, turned a frightened but defiant look at him.

"You're too late, Jack," she said. "They've gone. You can't harm them."

Locksley threw himself down on the couch, laughing.

"Mary, I never wanted to hurt them," he said. "Sit down, won't you, and let us talk. Look here, girl, you've never found me such a bad fellow, have you? In my own way I've been straight and fair to the people I met."

"You were too good for the life you were leading," she said, earnestly.

"Thanks, Mary. I know I am; anybody is. The life caught, me when I was a youngster, and has kept me busy ever since.

"But when I came out they all expected it of me— even the police and the padre at the gaol, who was a darned decent fellow. The police watch me, expecting all sorts of things. As for Eve and Fred— they made the break easier for me. All I came out wanting to do was to get away to Queensland or some place where I can make a start in something honest. But I wanted to make the break clean. I wanted to pay over fair and square to the others some money that really belongs to them.

"It was you and your honest principles that helped me, Mary. Let's go somewhere to have something to eat and talk over things."

SEVERAL DAYS later the padre, by appointment, saw Locksley away on the train to Brisbane, and was introduced to a happy-looking girl he said was his wife. And the padre had an envelope the contents of which gave a crackling response to his touch thrust into his hand.

"It may help you to help some of the poor devils who need help," said Locksley. "As far as I'm concerned, the future's straight; Mary will keep it so. No need to worry about the money, padre; it's my prison savings. I don't need them. Some old friends of mine have forced some money on me."

__________________________

7: The Mercy of the Seas

World's News (Sydney) 2 Sept 1931

"THE Kyuna sinking! S.O.S. received— instead of turning in to Suva, we're going on to her help."

Until that moment Gloria Leyland had hardly noticed the excitement that had swept the dining-saloon of the Talagoona; she was too goldenly occupied with her own happiness.

Within a few hours they were to be at Suva. Another day, perhaps, or less, Larry Chambers would be there, too. All that long waiting they had imposed upon themselves would be over; and a happiness intensified by the restraint— the banking up of their emotions— would rush upon them.

Her visions of the ecstasy to come engrossed her. Larry had been proudly disinclined to ask her to marry him until he had assured a position worthy of her; while she had no thought of material advantages as far as she was herself concerned; would, in fact, have preferred to have shared every hardship and struggle with him, a fear that she might be a handicap to him, a hindrance to his concentration upon his work, had caused here to fall in with his views. So the happiness they might have seized upon three years before had been deferred. It had been long and painful waiting, but at last it was over. Larry, having made good with the engineering chance he had secured in Canada, had cabled that he was returning to marry her. That cable burnt down all the barriers of her restraint; she could no longer endure the weeks of waiting. Her answer went back to him that she would meet him at Suva, whither the outgoing steamer would take her in time to forestall his arrival. She did not want the pomp and circumstance of a great wedding; their marriage was a concern of just themselves alone, and, now that, the time of waiting was at an end, she would not postpone it for an hour.

And, into her dreams had crashed this disaster! Larry was on the Kyuna, and the Kyuna was sinking!

The excitement that had leapt to life in the dining-saloon had not touched her, at first, engrossed as she was in her thoughts. It had started when a junior officer approached the captain, whispering something to him; and he had risen suddenly and disappeared. Then the whispers began to circulate, and the saloon to empty, as the diners hurried on deck.

Gloria noticed, at last, the quick emptying, the absence of the usual after-dinner chatter. A man, with excitement on his face, was passing her as she looked wonderingly around.

"Is anything the matter, Mr. Hardy?" she asked him.

He paused and jerked out the news that had come to him, excitedly, as people pass on the tidings of impending disaster; then he hurried on.

Leaving her with chaos on her mind! The Kyuna sinking! What did that mean? Danger, and perhaps death to the man about whom she had been dreaming so happily only a minute ago. Death! No, not that! Not that after all their waiting, at the very moment of their reunion!

She rose to join those who had already sought the deck. Even during the progress of dinner she had become aware that the slight roll of the vessel had become intensified; now, as she was about to step on to the deck, she had to hold to the side of the door as the vessel rolled, steeply. There was a sense of increased speed about the steamer. The land that had been close to them, and looming on their bow before dinner, was now a long dark smudge from which a coast light twinkled palely in the faint evening light, far astern of them. The Talagoona, which had been speeding for Suva, had altered course, and, at full speed, was crashing through the storm towards the ship whose call for help had come across the waters. And the storm was beating upon the vessel as if to check her. The slapping and singing of the ropes as the wind whirled amongst them, the creaking and groaning of the huge vessel as it forced its way through the blinding seas, was a song of the struggle.

"Oh, hurry!" gasped Gloria, involuntarily. But she knew that the vessel was being pressed to as great a speed as it could attain. The quiver of its fabric, the heavy smoke-clouds pouring from the funnels and rolling away swiftly astern, spoke of a frenzied desire for speed as intense as that that was beating in her own heart.

She felt her way along the reeling deck and joined the crowd that had assembled forward on the hurricane deck. They seemed to have rushed into the night so quickly had the last lingering daylight had faded; but they could see the waves ahead, great, towering mountains that reared high above the bows and roared down upon the vessel, with avalanches of minor waves shooting ahead, rushing forward as if to engulf the steamer. Up the sides of these sea mountains the bows rose bravely to ride over the seething masses of water, and caught nearly by the cap, which sent a thundering surf into the forepart, amid a hail of spray sweeping before the wind, as It tossed off the waters. The spray rained upon the watchers on the deck, drenching those who stood in the front ranks, even on the sheltered side—no one dared stand on the other. A canvas screen, soaked, made thunders, too, as it flapped against the bulwarks or tore . at the retaining cords.

And overhead the wireless spluttered in the spray-and-rainswept darkness, throwing out its little green lightings, pouring its messages of hope and' assistance through the tempest.

"You'll get wet through, Miss Leyland," said a man's voice at her elbow, full of sympathy. "You want to get your coat— a waterproof, too… Well, may I go to your cabin and get them for you?"

She had shaken her head at his first suggestion but gave her assent now. Herself, she could not leave the deck. Here she seemed nearer to her lover, who was in danger. She wanted to know how far off he was, how soon they would reach the sinking vessel. People were talking all around her, and all they said seemed to be nebulous, unauthoritative— all unsatisfying.

"Chief officer told me, just now!" one man said, shouting to make himself heard against the storm. "The Kyuna has been having rough weather. Tailshaft has broken and the water is rushing in. The idea of saving the ship is hopeless; they can't keep the water back."

"Matter of hours, then," shouted back the man next to him. "Question of us being able to reach the ship in time to rescue the passengers."

"Don't see what we can do, if we do get there! In these seas! A boat wouldn't live a minute. The whole lot are goners, I would say!"

Then— perhaps someone nudged him— he turned to see Gloria, white-faced, at his elbow, and mutter confusedly, "Oh, I'm sorry." They knew of her; she was probably the only person on board with a personal life and death interest in the fate of the vessel to whose assistance they were rushing.

"It is not true! It can't be true!" her heart cried wildly. "Oh, God, after waiting all these years!"

But she looked out into the darkness, split here and there with gleams of white, where the waves were broken in foam; gleams that were like the teeth of wolves in triumphant fury. She saw, near the boat, the awful swirl of the merciless waters, picturing how a boat might be whirled about in their restless, mighty forces, dashed down, and lost in the smother. But, no! she would not give up the hope for the man she loved. Somehow these men of the sea would find a way of rescue.

She felt the coat being put on her shoulders; the waterproofing went over that. And Jack Parkins had brought his long boots, too. She found herself lifting her feet as he pulled them on. She was grateful. Even these little acts gave occupation for the time, the awful time of waiting until they should come nearer to the sinking Kyuna.

She felt her hand pressed; felt, also rather than heard, the deep sympathy in his, "I'm sorry, Miss Leyland."

"Could you— find out for me— something?" she shouted to him.

He nodded. An officer, the wetness dripping from him, had come down from the bridge, to be immediately surrounded and pursued along the deck by curious questioners, from whom he tried to escape. Parkins joined them.

And Gloria stared into the swelter of waters, her lips muttering prayers. The crackle of the wireless above was a little comforting. It was not till Parkins' high-lifted voice sounded at her shoulder that she realised he had returned.

"The Eastern Queen and the City of Tangier are nearer than we are. They are both rushing to give assistance. The Eastern Queen should arrive in no time."

"And how long shall we—"

"Four or five hours. We're going well. She should last till then."

She turned sharp upon him, her hand on his arm.

"Oh please, Mr. Parkins, the truth! Is the Kyuna doomed? Shall we be there in time?"

"The others will, the officers think," said Parkins, awkwardly. He saw the imperative question, demanding the knowledge of the worst coming. "It's a question of how long the water can be kept back sufficiently to keep her afloat. Everybody is working splendidly, so the wireless says. No panic. The wireless man is sticking to his work."

Gloria stared ahead, visions in her eyes. The words, "Everybody is working splendidly," stirred her sinking heart with a thrill. They could cover Larry. She could see him, with his firm chin, his brave, efficient air, moving about amongst the crowds on the doomed vessel, inspiring confidence, maintaining order—doing all that he could. She was sure of him!

The storm was intensifying as they drove into it. The ferocity of the seas grew into a new wildness; occasionally the wind swooped with a shriek, and tore at everything it could seize upon, shaking it fiercely, as if to sweep it away. Even this upper deck was awash with water, and, with the plunging and rolling of the vessel, it was difficult to keep footing. Gloria was aware that the spray-laden wind was stinging on her face and hands; but she stayed on, staring into the waters, counting, it seemed, each great mountain of tumbling waters as another step towards the place where the man she loved was facing, death.

The crowd had dwindled, seeking the comfort of smoking-room or lounge, or perhaps even their bunks, for a few hours, when most of them could return to see the final act of this struggle with the elements.

"Won't you go below, Miss Leyland?" Parkins' voice shouted at her. He continued to urge reasons; she ought to warm herself for a time; she could do no good, see nothing, waiting there. Later she could come back. She shook her head, numbly to each of his urgings; and then realised that he had gone.

She told herself that it was unfair to accuse him of desertion; after all, he had no personal interest in the sinking vessel. But if she went, it would be desertion.

And then he was back again, a silver jug of steaming coffee and a cup in his hand.

"You had to have something," he said. "I had a spot of brandy put into it. It was no use bringing the saucer."

Balancing himself with difficulty, he handed her the cup, and poured some of the hot, brown liquid into it. Again she was gratified; it was not until she felt the reviving influence of the hot drink that she realised how close she had been reduced to insensibility under the flogging of the storm.

"What time is it?" she shouted.

"Gone half-past ten!" he roared back. Surprise came to her; that time could have flown so swiftly whilst every minute seemed a dragging eternity. She heard a cry come from the watchers— a cry of alarm and horror; and as she looked sharply, the roar of waters rose to an intense ear-breaking crash. The ship rocked and shuddered, as a mass of sea spread itself over all the fore part of the vessel, hiding it in a spume of white. She grasped the hand-rail in time to save herself from being knocked off her feet completely by the shock.

There were sounds of shouted orders, hurrying feet, the rattle of moving metal in the heart of the vessel. Quivering and groaning she rose, throwing off the weight of waters that lay upon her. They made a new roar as they avalanched over side.

People with white faces were asking anxious questions all round her. There was terror amongst them; the speed of the Talagoona seemed to have slackened.

An officer appeared amongst them. "Nothing to be alarmed at. We've had to slacken speed. We were going too fast into the storm, and went through the top of a big-un."

He disappeared, going upward. A few more of the watchers vanished; but Gloria, clinging to the hand-rail, whipped by wind and spray, stayed on. The crackle of the wireless, again, was a comfort to her.

Suddenly she was aware that, behind her, people were talking. The officer— or another— had come down again, and several men had surrounded him. questioning him.

"Her wireless has ceased. Dynamos out of action. The operator was just telling us, when messages stopped. But the Eastern Queen tells us she's standing by. They're going to try to make an effort to get some passengers off, but it's a question how long she can last. Matter of minutes. She's a goner."

He looked around at the moan Gloria could not suppress. She felt herself swooning; but through her faintness she heard him urging Parkins to "try and get the lady below."

"Her sweetheart... on Kyuna... married in Suva!" Just those words she heard, and knew what Parkins was explaining. The officer was beside her. urging her to go below.

"No use your staying. You can do nothing; only make yourself ill..."

He had taken her arm, trying to detach her grip from the hand-rail.

"No! Please!" she pleaded. "He wants me near him... if I'm below I will be right away...."

That was how she felt; in spite of the wild stretch of waters between, she felt he needed her; she must not desert. Being there, thinking of him, she would give him strength. There was argument, pleading; and then she had won. They brought her stimulants, and she took them, staring, staring, still, ahead.

Vaguely she heard people talking, their shouts mingling with the crackling of the wireless, the. roar of the waters, and the storm. News was coming through; she heard it numbly. The Kyuna had gone. A boat had somehow battled through the waters and reached the Eastern Queen, but before all could be got aboard the boat had been smashed against the ship's side. At least half had been lost. Other boats had been launched. What had become of them was uncertain. The City of Tangier was now on the scene.

But Larry was not dead! He could not be dead! Staring ahead into the cauldron of the storm, she seemed to out-speed the Talagoona.

The Kyuna, with its deck on a fearsome slant, and the buffeting waves threatening to beat it over, was lurching dreadfully; and there she found Larry. He had been helping to get a boat away, and the scared people into it. He seemed to smile at her— confident, brave.

"I am sorry— for you, Gloria!" he said, gently. "I had such hopes— but death will end everything. I have done my best; and now comes the end. But, oh, my dear, I am sorry for you!"

She knew what it all meant. The last of the boats that had not been smashed had been got away. There was little hope in that swirl of waters. "It will be a matter of minutes, now," he said. "Best to let the end come— not to struggle."

"No, you must struggle! Fight to the last! Think of all it means to me!" she cried, passionately.

A new light seemed to spring into her face.

"When I think of you, Gloria!— Yes, I must," he said.

The chain of the vision snapped. She was back on the Talagoona, and people had hold of her, trying to lead her away.

She struggled fiercely with them. "No, no! I must stay!" she screamed. "Look, the light! Is not that one of the vessels?"

It was there, faintly seen for a few minutes as the Talagoona rose to the crest of a wave; seen again, from a similar vantage, a few minutes later. A searchlight from somewhere aloft was trying to pierce into the murk of storm. The wireless was crackling fiercely.

Somehow she knew she had won her point; the fierceness of her confidence that she was doing some essential good in staying had won out for her. She must be there to stand by her lover, to strengthen him with her will for his life.

It was as though her love for him had created a power of clairvoyance in her enabling her to cast her spirit across the tempest so that she was beside him. She was confident in her visions, confident that, as yet, he was not dead and that he must be given to courage to fight on. Hers was the fight as much as his.

The water was over him, now. The waves were tossing their crested heads and crashing down upon him, swirling this way and that. The smother of the fighting waves submerged him. And again he was above them, choking and suffocated by the strength of the crosscurrents that tore at him and lashed into his face as when he gasped for breath. Bruised and smothered, he was allowing himself to slide into unconsciousness, welcoming it. He had a grip upon something that was keeping him from being thrust right under the tempestuous swirlings, but she saw the grip relaxing with the ebbing of his desire to continue the struggle.

"Larry!" she screamed; she felt herself straining forward to touch and rouse him. "Larry, don't let yourself go! Fight on, for me, Larry! For me!"

It seemed that he smiled at her wearily; then that he understood, knew that she was there. The sleepy content fell from his face; its lines stiffened with resolution; the slipping fingers tautened. The head lifted above the smothering waters into which it had been falling, in an effort to find the breathing air.

Again the vision faded, sharply. She was back on the Talagoona. She was pointing with outstretched arm over the flowing of waters away on the starboard.

"There! There! Can't you see it?" she screamed. They stared as she pointed, seeing nothing; and she saw nothing herself. She was only aware that a powerful impulse had come to her to point to that spot in the heaving waters; that it was maddeningly imperative that she should induce the commanders of the Talagoona to move in that direction.

Somehow she had reached the bridge. The skipper stared at her; there was something in her urgency that was convincing, compelling. He knew her story, and believed that the strain of the night had driven her mad; yet there was just the chance that she had seen something other eyes had missed.

A profound comfort fell upon her as she realised that the course was being changed; felt the veering of the big steamer beneath her, and noticed that the direction of the rise and fall of the huge sea mountains had changed. She allowed herself to be led to the deck below; but there she broke from those about her, farcing her way, against the storm, to the forward rail.

She stared into the storm that beat upon her face and blinded her. There was nothing, of course; all this, the visions that had come to her, the urgent importance that had appeared to be attached to the direction she had given, was all part of a madness induced by the strain of the night. Larry was not one who would seek safety whilst others were to be saved; there was no room for any hope for a man who was cast into that inferno of tossing waters that raged around them.

The passengers had gathered again to see the last act of the tense sea drama.

She heard, coming to her in single, faint words, occasional fragments of their shouted sentences as the rare times speech was ventured against the gale that beat upon them. The City of Tangier had picked up another boat, and, with one exception, safely taken its passengers on board. But, as for Larry, all was hopeless now; she could only stay to be as near to him in spirit as she could be , in his last moments.

A huge sea mountain, mammoth even amongst the giants that had been tossing around them all the night, lifted its crest, terrifying, above their bows. The Talagoona, from the deep trough into which it had plunged, began to lift, climbing up that huge mass of irresistible water.

Down, down it crashed, roaring like some monster tiger leaping upon its prey, pouring forward the advance avalanches from near its crest. The Talagoona, lifting still, but not quickly enough, shuddered under the shock of the crushing waters that poured over the side, leaping over the foredeck and filling the well deck with their tossing surges.

The Talagoona quivered and shook under blows that seemed likely to smash the life out of her. Then, again, the bows were free from this smother, shaking off the waters. And in those that still swirled in the well deck there floated something that was either a mass of wreckage or perhaps a raft. Occasionally a gleam from lights that had not been smashed showed upon it as it swirled into the maelstrom of imprisoned waters, leaping about like wild horses suddenly pursued.

"My God!" yelled someone at Gloria's elbow. "Look down there! There's a man on that wreckage!"

A scream rose from Gloria's throat. She, too, saw the helpless form; but a despair seized her. It could not be Larry!

Her strength was spent. Dimly she heard shouted orders, was aware of rushing movement. She was aware that she 'had fainted and had been revived; that kindly, solicitous people had been around tier, comforting her. It must have been hours before that she had fainted. A real consciousness did not come back until she found herself, where they had led her, beside a bunk, on which a figure, much bandaged, lay. But as she saw the face, a knowledge that she was alive and life was beautiful, came to her.

"Larry!" she cried.

"You brought me through, Gloria," he said. "When I was in the strangle of waters, hoping to drown quickly, I thought you were beside me, urging me to struggle. So I struggled— for your sake. And here I am!"

"THERE YOU have it," said the skipper of the Talagoona, when he told the story. "Call it what you like— telepathic influence or anything else. What I'll say is, Larry Chambers— friend of mine, now— wouldn't be alive to-day if the lady who is his wife hadn't been on the Talagoona that night! What made her able to point us to the spot in that heaving wilderness where we picked Larry up— and how, even then, he was lifted aboard by the seas without being dashed to death— well, those are amongst the million to one chances that come off sometimes, but no one can explain!"

________________

8: The Winner

Sydney Mail  1 June 1932

IN the way one does such things, it became my habit to buy the cigarettes and such trifles I wanted at the little shop in Crag-street; it was a pleasure to meet the pleasant little lady who bustled about within and had her amiable, eager smile for everybody. She conveyed the impression of having seen better days, whilst never being discontented with the ones that were worse. And there was that ineffable touch about the way she did whatever had to be done, or said whatever had to be said, that helps the impression that this world is really a nice place in which it is natural for people to be pleasant to one another.

The affection between Mrs. Smith and the handsome young woman who called her 'Mother' had its appeal also. It seemed to complete the comfort of the establishment. But, although the younger woman would have been an excuse for the popularity of the shop, it was the pleasant-faced Mrs. Smith who was the greatest appeal to me.

In spite of the invitation to become something greater and more garish, the shop remained still the little corner-store, like a memory of a quiet village set in a jazz city. But for the little store-lady I might have disliked the name of Smith.

There was another Smith who was the head of the business firm for which I worked; a curiously unpopular man. Bumptiousness might be the best description for the quality that created the basis of our dislike. Even in his geniality Smith gave an impression of condescension— the air of one who is confident of having made a remarkable success of life and feels some scorn for the comparative failures.

Very likely the impression was unconsciously conveyed; perhaps it was really envy for a man who at thirty had done so much better than others' that, unconsciously also, swayed our feelings, causing us to emphasise his failings. But even with the people outside who had dealings with our firm there was something of the same attitude towards him; behind his back people called him 'The Winner'— an ironical tribute to the opinion they thought he held of himself; and they gleefully told stories of occasions when he had not been the winner.

He had been marked for a prey by a few people who had judged that he would far rather bear a loss than admit that he had allowed himself to be defrauded. Sometimes my own vague dislike would disappear under a feeling of compassion for a man who, with all his success, must have been strangely lonely.

That used to happen after his wife had visited the office, sweeping in imperiously, and sweeping, out again, shortly, with an aspect that she had obtained all she came near the beastly place for, that all as obviously being a cheque. There was not even a pretence that she would want to see her husband about anything else.

Dawley Smith had married a woman with a social standing, buying that, apparently, merely as a mark of his success in life, for, having obtained it, he cared nothing for it; but he was paying dearly for the purchase, so it was said.

BETWEEN the sweet old Mrs. Smith, who was poor but had evidently known refinement, clung to it in poverty, and Dawley Smith, who was proud of being a self-made man and had a certain vulgar aggressiveness, there was a wide gulf fixed; the similar names made one who, as it were, bridged the gulf think of it queerly. There was one man, however, who did not share the almost universal dislike for Dawley Smith; old Trinder, the messenger, a man of privileged position and choleric temper, flared if, in his presence, anything was said about 'the young guv'nor.'

The superior indifference which the boss showed for others vanished, too, when he spoke to the messenger; often he would pause by the messenger's box to have a few words, spoken in a voice warm with friendliness, pass him over some cigars, and ask, invariably on Mondays, 'How were the fish biting, Bill?'

Bill's hobby was fishing; it was not surprising to meet him on the rocks at Bondi on Sunday afternoon, when I took a fancy to wander over them. Shortly I found a seat on the rock near him.

'What's your idea about these rumours going about the office— about the firm being up against it?' I asked. It was a subject that was causing me some personal anxiety.

'The firm'll get through all right,' growled Trinder.

'Yes; but—'

'The young guv'nor does too much for other people— that's his trouble; but he's got a good head, and he'll weather through. That's all it is— doing too much for others and getting no thanks.'

'Likes to be the big man.' I couldn't help that thrust at the boss's partisan.

'YOU chaps make me sick,' said Trinder with sudden violence. 'You get better paid than in most offices; the young guv'nor is proud of paying good wages. He wants good work, and may roar if he doesn't get it; but has he ever does a bad turn for anyone in the office? He hasn't! He's one of the best bosses in Sydney, and yet you've all got a grouch against him.'

'It's his manner, perhaps,' I suggested, acknowledging Trinder's truth grudgingly; 'but—'

Just then Trinder got a bite and added a flopping parrot-fish to his already respectable catch.

'You've got some good 'uns,' I said. 'What do you do with them?'

'Take some home,' he said. 'On the way I'll drop a few at the young guv'nor's— I always do. I reckon he likes it.'

Silence fell suddenly— an awkward silence. I felt Trinder might think I suspected him of kow-towing to the boss, but Trinder was not the sort of man you had that sort of suspicion about.

'I knew the young guv'nor since he was a kiddy in petticoats,' he said. 'That's why I'm in a position to judge the sort of man he really is. I was in service with his father, sort of general factotum.'

'Why, I thought he was a self-made man.'

'So he is; there was nothing about the old guv'nor to help to make him. A fine old gentleman he was, but his very name was pride. He didn't have much money, and it became less; but, whatever happened, we had to keep up appearances— we at the house. He had to belong to his clubs even if he daren't no more than put in an appearance now and again for fear of spending money; the boys had to go to proper schools, even if there was a juggle over fees; and although Mrs. Smith wanted to help her husband by doing her own housework, no, he wouldn't stand for it. He was a stickler for maintaining his position, even down to giving the regular subscription to charities when the tradespeople were threatening bailiffs.

'YOUNG Master Dawley didn't fit into the idea at all. The little devil got a commercial instinct from somewhere; I expect it was from his mother, who used to rasp the old guv'nor by wanting to leave the old house and move into a small place where she could do all the work. Why, the little feller was only five or six when he got an idea from seeing the newsboys selling papers. What do you think that youngster did? He gathered all the old magazines in the house and started selling them down the street.'

Old Trinder chuckled as he told the story; his line was lying unnoticed now, although it had drifted into the weeds. He was interested in what he was telling.

'Young Master Dawley got a hiding out of that; it upset the old guv'nor a lot, not only the idea of his son havin' been seen sellin' papers, but because of him having such low commercial instincts. But you couldn't thrash those instincts out of Master Dawley. Even if he was keeping white mice he'd find people keeping snakes, who were buyers of mice for food, so he'd make money out of them; and his pigeons were worth something, too. Whenever his father found out any of his trading he got it hot, did Master Dawley; the time he was found running a trade with a billy-cart between some stables and gardens that wanted manure I thought the old guv'nor would have killed him.

'You couldn't teach him. I don't know all he did, but I do know one thing. It was during a holiday and I had gone to Paddington to see a sister, an' there I sees Master Dawley driving a bottle-oh cart— he's about thirteen then— his younger brother Denver with him.

'Master Dawley, you young imp!' I said. 'Where did you get that outfit from?'

'Well, you know, Bill,' he said, 'the only way to make money from bottles is not to sell 'em to the dealer, but be a dealer yourself. So I hired this cart, and I'm making a bit of money.'

'When your father hears of it—' I began; but he cut in:

'I know you won't be a nark, Bill; you're not built that way.'

'Well, I wasn't a nark, of course; I was fond of Master Dawley, and I reckoned there was nothing wrong in it— it was pretty clever on the youngster's part, really.

'Keep to Paddington, Master Dawley,' I says, 'and off the main streets.' And there, as far as I was concerned, it ended.

'And then Mr. Smith dropped dead one morning in town, and, out of all his pride and his keeping up appearances, he left behind him for his family nothing but a house mortgaged for more than it was worth and his unpaid bills.

'Relatives had to come round, of course— relatives who were all much like the old guv'nor, trying to keep up a position on less than it costs; and you know how relatives are in such a case. They had some idea of putting the widow into a boarding-house, and, of course, Aubrey, who was 17, and Dawley, who was two years younger, would have to get jobs; but they didn't seem to be able to make up their minds definitely, and there were four other children, younger, to be considered.

'It was selfish of James not to make better provision. None of us can really afford to help, but we're forced to do it,' said one of them.

'The door was half open an' I was listenin', wishin' it was in my place to butt in with a word of advice, when young Dawley — not Aubrey, mind you, his elder brother, but Dawley— sprang up, tears shining in flashing eyes.

'My Dad's dead and can't answer you,' he said, 'but I can; an' I say we don't want your money, if you can't afford it!'

'The little cock-sparrow, speakin' up like that for the Dad who'd given him more hidings than had been bestowed on all the rest of the family put together! That was young Master Dawley for you! And then he staggered that family of relatives, and his mother, too, and his brothers and sisters, all grouped together, frightened, wondering what was to become of them, by telling them, as if the matter's all clean-cut and fixed, that they were going to take a shop; and they were not going to be all separated, the younger children going to relatives, but were going to get along together; and when they challenged how it was to be done he showed a Savings Bank pass-book, which opened their eyes.

'If you had that money,' cried his Uncle Jeff, 'you should have given it to your poor father to help him through his difficulties. You knew he had his difficulties.'

'And it would have all gone on nothing— keepin' up the style that caused poor Dad to die with nothing! Isn't it more useful now?'

'MASTER DAWLEY seemed to have become a man in a day; he took charge and he had an answer for all his relatives. They kicked against the idea of a relative of theirs running a small shop— said it was 'a new disgrace,' and things like that. But Master Dawley had his mother with him— eager to keep her family together, eager for the idea itself, proud of her son; and he had his way. He actually had the shop in mind he could get, and knew what he had to pay and everything planned out. How's that for a kid of fifteen?

'Mrs. Smith had loved her husband— and let me tell you the old guv'nor was a lovable man, a real gentleman to everyone— but though he was gone I really think she'd never been as happy as she was in that shop. The way she arranged the windows, went out to look at them, and rearranged them again! You see, she had always wanted to work, and had been prevented from doing it, as if idleness was happiness, and now she had got what she really wanted. And her son had given it to her— that mattered, too.'

'The shop in Crag-street,' I interjected suddenly.

Trinder looked at me inquiringly.

'I go there almost every day,' I explained. 'But I had no idea that that Mrs. Smith was the boss's mother.'

'Then you know what a real lady she is,' he said.

'Yes; but,' I said, 'he never seems to go there. Anyway, now that he has made so much money—'

'Best let me tell the whole yarn, now I've started. Then you'll see the sort of man the young guv'nor is. The way he bucked into that shop business was wonderful; he and Aubrey got jobs to help; but at night he'd work in the shop. He reorganised the stock, made a real good business of it; and he got his mother to let the younger kids to keep on at their good schools. A regular father of the family he became— and him only fifteen!

'Uncle Jeff didn't last long after his brother; he died in much the same circumstances, and that meant another family consultation to decide what was to become of his daughter Betty— he was a widower. They weren't even invited, not being expected to be able to help, but Dawley turned up with his mother. I reckon he remembered being hurt by them talking as if they were discussing a charity.

'Mother has decided to ask Betty to come to our home and be one of us. We can make her happy,' he told them. No one knew better than himself that the burden would be on his shoulders, for he was the mainstay. But that's the sort of man Master Dawley is!'

'Of course, ostentatious vengeance had something to do with it,' I began, but apologised quickly when Trinder glared.

'I'll show you what sort of a man the young guv'nor is,' he said. 'They were getting along nicely when the war came.'

'He didn't go,' I said, remembering an often-quoted sneer.

'That's where you're wrong!' he cried. 'It's a sore point with him and he never likes to speak about the war, because it was there his disappointments began— if you don't count the way his father tried to thrash commerce out of him. He enlisted with his brother Aubrey; Denver and Cyril enlisted later. Probably they none of them thought of it as he did; he was the only one who made the fullest allotment possible to his mother; he said he could help her just as much away, financially, as he could at home. The others had grown into the habit of leaving it to him to keep the home going; their allotments were smaller.

'Master Dawley was sent back, ill, from Colombo; he arrived to find that, with him away, the business had fallen off. He got it right again, and then he re-enlisted, being all right again. They found him a good organiser up at the camp, gave him stripes, put him on instructional work, and kept him there. He tried to get away several times, and he was just on the point of going when the word came through that Masters Aubrey and Denver had been killed at Pozieres. Cyril, who was the youngest, barely sixteen, was on his way over then, and, distracted with grief, Mrs. Smith put in an application for the young guv'nor's discharge on account of family casualties. It was granted.

'You talk about him not going to the war! If you had seen how white-faced he was when he spoke to me about it!'

'I wish I was Cyril and over there, Bill!' he told me— you see, I had always kept in touch with the family.

'You know what people will say— that my brothers went, but I arranged to be kept in camp and didn't go, after all. Yet mother's nearly mad with Aub and Den gone, and how can I insist on going?'

'And you say he, never went to the war!' reiterated Trinder scornfully. 'People did say just what he knew they would, too— that his brothers had been killed and he had lurked at home, making a good position for himself. And he was too proud to defend himself by saying how he'd enlisted and tried to get away. He became bitter about it— do you wonder?— and wouldn't even wear a badge to show his enlistment and discharge.

'But Miss Betty softened the bitterness a good bit. They became sweethearty, and a fine pair they looked going about together. She was seventeen, and it was arranged that they should wait a bit before they married. They were pretty happy as they were, and all their prospects were good. The young guv'nor had got ahead by leaps and bounds, and he'd started the firm in a small way. Took advantage of the war, some of them say; well, the guv'nor's one that would take advantage of any circumstance that helped, and as far as that's concerned the war did give him a start. And he thought of me straight away when the firm started to grow, and gave me a job. That's the sort of man the young guv'nor is!

'I knew just how envious he was of Cyril when he came back with two wounds, an M.M, a D.S.O., and a commission; but Master Dawley wasn't one to let that stand in the way of giving him the good time he deserved. He took him round every show in Sydney with Betty, never thinking of what effect the presence of a man younger than himself, handsomer, too, perhaps, and surrounded by a halo of glory, would have. Of course I don't know how it came about, but when he found out he faced it like the man he is. I know, because that was in our old office, where you had to hear in my box what was happening in his office.'

'Betty, dear, it is a fact, isn't it? You love Cyril?' he said.

'It was the first I had heard of the conversation, having just entered; and it was a bombshell, the more so as all that came from Miss Betty was a stifled sobbing.

'Betty,' he appealed— his voice had a piteous sound to me. And then he was suddenly normal and even-toned. 'No need for you to cry, sweetheart; I only want your happiness. You and I couldn't be happy, dear, if we did not love one another; so dry those tears. If it is Cyril you want— well, I am satisfied. That bungalow we built together'— his voice seemed to catch over that— 'it will be my wedding present.'

OLD TRINDER sprang up and began to noisily undo his rod into its sections and bundle them together with a ferocity of action which suggested that he was slaying all the enemies of Dawley Smith.

'There are some people who get used to doing for other people; they make sacrifices as a matter of habit, and it's only expected of them. That's Master Dawley. He gave her up for Master Cyril. I'm not saying anything against Master Cyril; he was a fine little chap as a boy. But he was only a boy when he went to the war, and it threw him off his balance. The house Master Dawley had built for his own happiness, and given to Betty, Cyril got hold of somehow. It went. Cyril piled up enormous debts, using his brother's name mostly— and worse than that, perhaps. And he fixed up everything for Master Cyril to get away; we don't know where he is now.

'And the young guv'nor paid up every penny to save his brother, to save Miss Betty. That's what's hitting him now, when business had become bad. It's the handicap he took over, and he didn't know that was coming until after he was married himself.

'Suppose he is a bit warped? Why shouldn't he be? Suppose, losing other things, embittered all round, he should have found a new ambition in making himself big in business; suppose he has grown a bit purse-proud— what of it? Suppose his ambition led him into a damn-fool marriage— I'm not saying a word against Mrs. Smith, junior,' he added hurriedly, finishing abruptly.

'But what of his mother— still in the shop?' He turned on me to reply, pausing. 'He wanted her to leave it— didn't like her staying in the business; but, although it is really his— he had bought the building and land, too— it was in her name and she refused to leave it. Don't you see?— that shop has all sorts of memories of happiness; of the eager, protective boy of fifteen who bought the business; of the pleasure the business itself gave to her; of the dead sons and married daughters who lived there. She won't leave it. To compel her, he said he would never go near the place again, and although they love one another and meet away from it, and write regularly, he has kept his word. The young guv'nor is like that.'

WHEN the smash came, as it did the following week, my sympathies entirely changed in Dawley Smith's favour. I saw him with other eyes— noted his courage and command of himself, his generosity in providing for the staff— a month's full salary in lieu of notice to those who had to go. How he had done it I don't know. I stayed on awhile; because I had heard all his story and would be sympathetic, old Trinder had perhaps arranged that.

One night Trinder stopped me mysteriously.

'Come back at seven to-night,' he said. Then he added: 'His wife served divorce papers on him to-day; it's a false accusation she makes, but he will let it go, I know.'

Trinder seemed to have a faculty of first sight; he may have developed a habit of reading his guv'nor's thoughts. Anyway, we leaped into his office just in time to prevent Dawley Smith from supplying the papers with another tragedy.

'This is foolishness, Master Dawley!' cried Trinder, seizing the hand that held the revolver and with a twist working it from the grip.

'What's the use, Bill, old chap? I've lost the business I've worked to make; friends I thought I could depend upon have turned me down; I was so confident of myself I thought a dozen business places would be glad to get me, but they're not so eager.'

'There's things left,' said Trinder, 'if you're not a fool. You're coming for a walk with us.'

Dawley protested; then, as if too tired to argue, indifferently yielded. It was to the shop in Crags-treet Trinder, after extracting a listless promise to go where he led, took him, and as we neared it Dawley shed his listlessness, looking about him eagerly. He leaped ahead of both of us into the shop and gathered the old lady, who greeted him with a glad cry, into his arms.

'Why, I'm coming back to you, mother,' he said. 'I've been looking around; there's room for reconstructing a big business here, and we'll have it! And live here together, too, if you like.'

'And what about— Betty?' He looked along the line of her pointing arm. 'Betty!' he cried, seeing her at the inner doorway. 'I— I did not know you were here!'

'I came back here when Cyril died,' she said, advancing slightly to him. 'That is six months ago now. After— all that happened I told Mother not to tell you; but I hoped you would come, one day, and find me.'

Possibly I was gazing gawkily, and Trindle nudged me.

'Let's get,' he said. 'He's pretty safe now.'

___________________

9: Vendetta

Sydney Mail 26 Oct 1932

WHEN you know that a man has borne in his mind for fourteen years the idea that he will some day kill an old enemy, and that enemy suddenly makes his appearance, apparently unconscious of the long nurtured hostility, the situation is embarrassing, to say the least. That was precisely my position regarding Arnoldo Bertilli when Hartley appeared on the scene.

It seemed ridiculous to associate blood-thirsty violence with the little musician with the slender fingers, who, in spite of dark Italian looks, spoke more like a Frenchman. At Melchisadeck Mansions, one of those places where a few partitions help to disguise single rooms as flats, each adorned with a toy kitchenette just big enough to help otherwise defenceless men to cheat the restaurants of some profits, I sometimes passed him on the stairs, and, in spite of his obvious devotion to garlic, liked him.

Perhaps his loneliness stirred a feeling of compassion; there was something in the shyly cheerful way in which he saluted in passing that added to it. In spite of the shyness there was a chirpy good-nature about him. Then there was the way he amused the children who stayed awhile in one of the flats on his floor; also his playing to a sick woman, who liked music; and his dignified protest when someone carelessly referred to him as 'the fiddle-player'— 'It is surely, m'sieur, because you do not know; I am not ze feedle-player— no! I am ze museecian, ze arteest!'

The offender— I don't know how it had begun— was abashed enough to mutter, 'I didn't mean no 'arm, mister.'

His playing, which I occasionally heard, did not strike me as upholding to the full his estimate of his own rank. My acquaintance with him was mainly a matter of things heard until my landlady told me about his blood-lust.

'Would you mind trying not to meet Mister Bertilli to-night?' she said nervously, intercepting me as I entered one evening. 'He is a little upset; in fact, I am afraid he has been drinking, and he is excited.'

'You mean I should avoid him?'I asked, astonished.

'You see, he's furreign,' she replied, an explanation no doubt adequate enough to her. 'It is your hair, if you'll excuse me saying it,' she stammered. 'A man with your coloured hair did the signor a great wrong at one time; I think he was in love with the man's wife, and the man took her away. Which was quite a respectable an' proper thing to do, I should say— but you never know what these furreigners may think right. Moosieur Bertilli swore to be avenged; that is why he is in Australia. He has followed his enemy here, and'— her voice dropped to a whisper— 'he says he will kill him when they meet.'

'He seems such an inoffensive little man!'

'So he is— quite respectable; there's not another tenant who pays his rent more regularly. But for fourteen years— so he tells me— he has sworn vengeance.'

It struck me, as she dropped her voice again, that she was enjoying the thrill of it.

'For fourteen years! He has a little image in his room, and he swears— with a knife in his hand, mind you— that he will kill the other man when he finds him. When I heard of it I told him to remember that I am a poor, lonely woman struggling to make an honest living, and on no account to kill anyone in my house. I'm sure he wouldn't, too, if he was quite right; but when he is in— in a excited condition he flares up at hair like yours, if you don't mind my saying it.'

BERTILLI was only a handful, and, although I might have reflected that dynamite may be held in small parcels, the warning merely amused me until, having left my door carelessly ajar, I turned to a sound and saw him standing in the doorway, vibrant with fury and a little knife gleaming in his hand. 'A-a-ah!' he exclaimed with a gasping breath.

'Zose hair! Zat eyes! At la-ast!' There was so much seriousness in the gleaming eyes that the way his excitement had jumbled his words gave me no amusement. It was a relief indeed to see the darkness clear from his face.

'No, it ees not you,' he said absurdly, slipping the knife away. ' 'Ow mooch apology do I owe you, my frien', 'oo I meet on de stair!'

He advanced into the room, and in my relief at his changed attitude I pushed the whisky bottle over towards him. 'I drink to you— I also drink to— ze revanche!' he cried. 'Ah, you do not drink? Is it zat—'

'Yes, yes, I'm drinking,' I said hurriedly, and his sudden renewal of ferocity was calmed.

'To ze revanche!' he cried. 'Some day, m'sieur, I will keel a man wis hair like yours!'

'As long as it is not me,' I said amiably.

'Let us 'ope, m'sieur, zat eet ees not you,' he said darkly.

The revival of an unpleasant possibility was not nice; to assure him of my friendliness I indicated the whisky bottle again, and he took a seat as he helped himself.

'Lees'en,' he hissed, leaning towards me; 'et ees not to make ze monee zat I come to zee Australie. Think eet not, m'sieur! I am 'umble— I will not boast, m'sieur; but, m'sieur, I am ze gre-at arteest, ze gre-at museecian! In Paris, in Europe, I make ze gre-at name. Kreisler, vot ees 'e?— pouf! Eet ees I, Arnoldo Bertilli, zat shall be Kreisler. But eet is not so. My life, eet ees spoil. By a man wis ze 'air like you!'

I really wished he would forget about my hair.

'Lees'en, m'sieur; I loved ze lady— ah, ze parfeet lady— ze Madonna, ze Venus! I am at 'er feet; but no; she ees 'ard— onlee because I am marry, my wife ees alive, I cannot marry wis 'er, she ees 'ard! And me ze gre-at arteest!— what ees marriage to an arteest? Ees not Arnoldo Bertilli mere zan marriage?

' "No," she say; "you wait; your wife, maybe she devorce you."

'Oh, ze cruelty! Ze agonee! 'Ow can a man— ze arteest— wis the 'art on fire wis zealousy be hees best? I tell ze concierge, even, 'e ees a peeg because she smile at heem! An' wis my torn chest where ees my 'art? 'Ee go!

'Ee cannot be! No more I write ze opera zat beat by far ze Verdi! I will not boast, m'sieur, but I am a genius; I am ze greatest composer in ze world! But 'ow can ze best composer write, upset down with ze passion?

' "Non, non, Arnoldo; you must wait," she say to me—ah, cruel! "You must prove yourself. I cannot love a man in ze so bad temper."

'I am despair. I moan. I take ze knife an' say I steek eet in 'er 'art; but no, eet does not make 'er love me. No; she laugh, an' then she go, suddenlee. I find out. My frien'— ze man I 'ad not suspect— 'ee ask 'er to marry heem — ah, canaille!— an' she chose zat to an arteest zat cannot marry 'er! An' 'ee was ze man wis ze 'air—'

'Like mine,' I said quickly, 'but not me.'

'Lees'en, my frien',' he said; 'I have 'ere ze daggare—'

'I know, I know,' I interrupted. 'No need to show it; I've seen it.'

'You haf ! Zat vill go t'roo hees ribs like so— oosh! — when I see heem, ze man wis ze 'air—'

'Like mine,' I finished for him. 'But why not forget it, old man? As he married her he is probably more unhappy than you are. Why not call it square and forget?'

His eyes flashed furiously. 'Forget? I, Arnoldo Bertilli, forget? Ah, nevare — nevare! I have sworn to have revenge. Come, you will see!'

He overwhelmed me, dragging me by the elbow; and so I was introduced to that little shrine before which the frail man kept the flames of his vengeance burning, to the thrilling of our mutual landlady. Having sworn his oath again with dramatic intensity, he swore a new one that, in spite of my hair, he knew I was his friend and he was mine. His desire to embrace me as a brother, however, still gave me a ticklish feeling about the ribs as I thought of the knife he carried with him.

After that we became friends, and the liking for the little chap gave me a genuine concern for him. He used to bring his violin to my room and bore me a bit with it, and bottles of wine, and garlic sausagehe could never quite realise that I did not like garlic. Perhaps we like our friends most for their faults — or at least some of their faults; there was a childish innocence about Arnoldo's conceit of himself that had an appeal of its own. Except for his hunger for vengeance, he was full of remarkable simplicity, and perhaps that primitive instinct was as simple as the rest of him. It seemed pathetic as well as absurd that such an impulse should obsess his whole life.

THERE was no doubt in my mind that when he met the man whose hair was like mine, whom he had left Paris to pursue, that knife, in spite of his frail physique, would be used suddenly and strenuously, the banked-up spirit of his vengeance giving him strength beyond his normal power. I even became anxious about him— especially for what he might do in one of what our landlady politely termed his 'excited moods.'

My concern was much more for Bertilli, whom I knew, than for the man I did not know who would suffer; the idea of the little musician dangling on a rope was unpleasant. It would be like hanging a child. He had a supreme confidence that some day he and his enemy would meet. He did not hurry matters; he went on with the work in the orchestra that, though he might despise it, kept him going, and waited. But the thought of his revenge was constantly before him.

Once I met him in a butcher's shop, and suddenly the knife leapt into his hand and was plunged into a carcase of mutton.

'Eet will be like zat!' he declared venomously.

The butcher, chopper suspended in air and jaw sagging, stared at him, and I was prepared to intervene with an explanation. But Bertilli found one for himself.

'Zose are ze chops I vill have,' he said calmly, putting away the knife. It was when, with voluble elation, he announced a discovery of a clue to the finding of his enemy that he became most excited. Sometimes I felt that the police ought to be warned, but the warning seemed an absurdity.

ONE day, as I rode past on the William-street tram, I saw the musician's dapper figure, the violin case in his hand, making a way along the pavement, and the idea that this was a dangerous character seemed more ludicrous than ever. 'Look— look! The man with the violin case! Surely that is our little friend of Paris— little Bertilli!'

The woman's voice was well-bred and sweet. Turning my head to look into the next compartment, I caught a view of a pleasant-faced, pretty woman, rather ample in figure, inclined towards a comfortable middle age. The man beside her was leaning forward eagerly to see what she indicated, and I noticed he had hair— like mine!

'Arnoldo Bertilli! You must be mistaken! What would he be doing here in Australia?'

'He has gone now; but, Harry, I'm sure I wasn't mistaken.'

Bertilli was not to be seen, and he had probably gone into one of the shops; there was one down there where garlic sausage of a kind particularly pleasing to his taste was obtainable.

'I'd have jumped off to speak to him if I had seen him,' said Harry. 'If you're sure it was he we must look him up.'

'Of course I'm not mistaken,' said the lady, and I could picture her arch smile. 'Don't you remember— he used to make love to me. I'm sure I wouldn't have married you so soon and given up my painting if I hadn't become a little frightened of him. I had no idea he took it so seriously, and I only wanted to encourage him in his work. You know, Harry, I really cared for the little fellow, in a way.'

'Well, so did I,' Harry agreed heartily. 'You couldn't help it. He was so like a child with his big ambitions and his conceit— and his little shyness. You felt that he was a chap you had to look after— the sort of fellow you had to help.'

They were lost in the bustle of the emptying tram at the top of William-street, leaving me with a feeling that I ought to have spoken to them, conveyed some warning.

Apprehension seized me; and yet, partly because I could not betray the little musician, partly fear of appearing ridiculous, kept me from obeying the inclination to inform the police.

I left matters to chance, and was given a shock when my landlady entered my room, less than a week after the incident in the tram, in an agitated manner.

'Oh, please, please keep your door shut,' she said— she did not realise that Bertilli and I had become such friends that he was prepared, even in the worst moments, to overlook my hair. 'Mister Bertelli has come home and he is excited— very excited; and there is a friend with him!'

Bertilli certainly was excited— I could hear him apparently trying to sing, shout, and laugh at once. I closed my door. But Bertilli did not let that stop him. He entered boisterously, and at his heels came another man— the big, wholesome-looking man I had heard addressed as 'Harry' on the tram.

'My frien'— both my friens,' said Bertilli. 'Permit me to present my old frien' M'sieur 'Artley. I have not seen him for fourteen years.'

THERE was a note of exultation in his voice. The situation, to me, was tense, all the more so because Hartley, poor fool, was in a heartily jolly humour, oblivious of the fate in store for him, and Bertilli on the top note of excitement. Against the musician I felt a spasm of anger never before experienced; the little brute had brought his victim to my room to do the deed, I thought.

'Sit down while I get the whisky,' I said, trying to cover my nervousness. 'No; you sit over here, if you don't mind.'

It was something to get the table between Hartley and the avenger; I sat, myself, near Bertilli, prepared to spring if I saw his hand go towards that hidden knife, about which Hartley was so unconscious.

'Well, here's to more meetings,' toasted Hartley. 'Just fancy me running across old Arnoldo after all these years! We knew one another in Paris— and he knew my wife, too.'

'It's coming! It's coming!' my heart drummed, and my nerves tautened for action.

'Did I not love 'er?' laughed Bertilli, but only I, apparently, sensed the danger in his voice.

'Of course; anyone would love her,' said Hartley heartily.

'What did you think of her when you met her this morning? I always say she keeps as charming as ever. A bit stouter, of course; but it makes her all the jollier.'

Poor fool, unconsciously goading the fury already stirred against him!

'It is because she is 'appee,' said Bertilli. 'I forgive you for taking 'er from me, for have you not made 'er 'appee? Ees eet not all a man can ask, if 'ee love a woman— zat she ees 'appee, even eef she is not hees?'

'It's the right spirit; but I don't know that I could feel that way,' said Hartley, standing up suddenly. Surely it must come now.

Alert for action, I watched Bertilli for a moment, but he apparently wanted to play with his enemy for a little longer.

'I'll get some water, if you don't mind,' said Hartley. I had been watching the situation so keenly that I had not noticed the deficiency; even now, instead of apologising and getting the water myself, I merely motioned him towards the tap.

Bertilli leaned towards me.

'What an escape!' he whispered. 'The girl I love, she was sleem, so like the fairee; but now— oh, mon Dieu! — oh, so fat! And eet ees only for the M'sieur 'Artley I would have married her!'

He must have noticed the worry on my face, for he laughed suddenly and, as if comprehending, took the knife from its hiding and flung it under the couch.

'A healt'!' he cried. 'May we all be sateesfied— zose who marry ze girl and zose who don't!'

_________________

10: Christine's Christmas Stocking

Barrier Miner (Broken Hill) 24 Dec 1932

"FOR heaven's sake, Christine, think of someone," appealed Mavis, sitting on the bed, sorting through a tangled mass of stockings to find a pair without a ladder in one of them.

"I can't think of anyone— not anyone—  I would like to ask for cash. Can't you think of someone?" .

"I've thought of a number; and it's like the one number you double, add thirty-six to, divide by two, take away the number you first thought of— and the result is nothing for Christmas dinner. And the paper says, it is likely to be a fine Christmas."

"We'll pull through, somehow, I suppose," said Christine, without any of the flippancy of her companion.

"Lamb's fry ought to be cheap on Christmas Eve, with everyone killing the fatted fowl. But personally, I hate lamb's fry without bacon; and it looks like a toss-up between bacon and butter for our bread— or perhaps the bread itself. That is, of course, if Mrs. Cummings doesn't make her threats about the flat final.  We might have some difficulty in smuggling out the griller, to cook anything !"

"Mrs. Cummings, poor soul, is fixed," said Christine. "I'm not frightened about that until the New Year. Why don't you invite yourself, to your brother's?"

"Fare's three and tenpence! Enough for a couple of days good housekeeping. Besides, when I went, there, I usually took presents for the kiddies; and if I go empty-handed I'll have to explain why, which will set Mrs. John on edge for fear I'm going to cadge from brother John. Moreover, what about you? Let us nail our colors to the mast, and do our Christmas starving together!"

"You will keep on joking about it; I feel inclined to cry," said Christine.

"What's the good of making yourself miserable?" demanded Mavis. "Unless, that is, your misery makes you do something sensible. Write to George. Even if he's a brute of a man, he's better than starvation."

"You know he's nothing of the kind !" flamed- Christine. "You've met him and you know the fine fellow he is!"

Mavis clapped her hands ecstatically.

"I thought that would draw you." she cried. "Well, what's this fine fellow done that you shouldn't write to him? Simply told— you were wrong in coming to the city and trying to make a career for yourself— that you ought to do as your people wanted you to do and stay at home until you were ready to marry. He told, you that you would find it a failure; well, what he said was true, wasn't it?"

"That's the very reason why I shouldn't let him and my people know, after all they said against it!" said Christine rebelliously. "It's only the slump that's made it a failure. I've got a job when the New Year starts; they say things are improving; and then I won't mind letting them know where I am. It would be a treat to see George again, really."

'Of course it would! And I'd much rather have a wedding for Christmas than a lamb's fry. Let me tell you, Christine, you're taking a risk. You're fond of George, yet because of your obstinacy you've hidden yourself away. He may think you've given him the go-bye; and you've got to remember that there are other girls in the world besides yourself."

"If he's a man like that, able to change because of a few months absence.... "

Christine did not finish; her cheeks had paled, then flushed. Mavis realised that she had stirred fears that were gnawing her heart even in her obstinacy, and was contrite for having hurt her.

"Well, what you do with George is your affair," she said. "And if you won't write to George I suppose your people are as hopeless...."

"They would only send me my fare to come home," put in Christine.

"Then, what about this John Hogan you thought might be an uncle of yours? Is he approachable without bringing in the rest of the family? What about considering him as a forlorn hope ?

Mavis cast aside the stockings impulsively and dived into a drawer in the dressing table for a paper. It bore a pencil marked passage which noted that Mr. John Hogan, of Booralee, was staying at the Hotel Merino.

"If that's my Uncle John, he's cast himself adrift from the rest of his family. I don't know much about him, except that he wasn't inclined to stay in the district where he was born, but went away and did well for himself. The only time I saw him was when I was a mere baby; he played with me, dandling me on his knee, and gave me a sovereign. I remember how shocked my mother was at such a sum being given to a baby, and the way I cried when it was taken from me."

"H-m! He sounds like a good prospect! This John Hogan is him, I suppose?" .

"He's got a station at Booralee, I know that," said Christine. "It was always a grievance with Dad when anything went wrong, that he, after working hard all his life in one place had to struggle, and a rolling stone like John Hogan had got on."

"Then he's rolling in wealth-and he gives away golden sovereigns to . infants ! That settles it I Mr. John Hogan gets a letter from his loving niece. Where's that ink ?

"I don't know how I'd write to him, Mav," said Christine.

"Don't let that worry you I" retorted Mavis. "I'll write it and I'm full of ideas."

Already she was beginning to scrawl the heading for her letter in a big childish hand. The missive went that night, after much debate over it, in which a great deal was excised lest too much should be said to a possible, stranger; and it was finally reduced to a mere scrap of simple cheekiness, mainly Mavis's. Surprisingly a letter, came back the morning after the next. It was a very brief one, but its contents were satisfying, especially as they included two fine crisp one-pound notes. It ran simply :

My dear niece.

The enclosed will show I am glad to have heard from you, though the letter was a surprise. I liked the part about hanging out your Christmas stocking. Get a big one, say one of your mother's. I'm very busy, but I'll surprise you before Christmas by dashing upon you. In the meantime, love to your mother and yourself.

Your affectionate uncle,

John Hogan.

"Hurrah!" cried Mavis. "There's an uncle to have— throwing about his notes like that! Aren't you glad I insisted on writing now? You see he is your uncle; he even remembers you."

"He's got a nerve, talking about mother like that, even if he is her brother. She's fat, certainly; but that passage about using her stocking is positively rude!"

"What's it matter, so long as it's a big stocking he wants to fill? An uncle like that would suit me! Well, I don't suppose you only want to look at that money, do you?"

MR. JOHN HOGAN was a somewhat irascible character, and one morning he decided that there was a lack of attention at the Hotel Merino not to be tolerated by one who was always prepared to pay for the commodity. He left in search of quarters that would give him greater or less satisfaction, however his luck happened to fall.

But two days later the name of "John Hogan" was entered again in the visitors' book against Room 10. It wasn't the same John Hogan; the night porter remarked to the booking clerk that it was a queer coincidence that men of the same name should occupy the same room in succession; the booking clerk commented that the world was full of Hogans, and many of them were Johns. Mr. John Hogan, himself, knowing nothing of the fact, made no comment at all.

He was surprised when the booking clerk handed him a letter on which the address was scrawled in a big, childish writing, quite unfamiliar to him, when he opened the missive he chuckled over the contents.

"Cunning little devil!" he laughed. " 'I saw that you are stopping at the Hotel Merino and, as the name is the same, I thought it would be probable for you to be my Uncle John. If you are, you will probably remember little Christine, to whom you were, so kind.' Christine? Let's see; that's Mary's youngster, of course. It would be like Mary, if she wanted to patch up the quarrel to prompt the kiddie to write."

As John Hogan said in his letter, he was very busy enjoying a holiday. It was  an annual pleasure, and a great deal of it consisted of spending money with a feeling that it was only made to be spent. That was a relaxation from the restraint of the rest of the year, when he was merely making it. The letter conjured to John's mind a picture of a small child bent over the task of writing; and whether the deed was prompted by a mother who was fond of indirect methods or not, it gave him a glow, and an opportunity for indulging his holiday hobby. So a letter went immediately, with its enclosures.

John was fond of kids, but he felt that there was no need to rush to a meeting with his niece, the more so as it meant a reunion with a sister with whom there was always some bickering when they met.

Circumstances had changed with Mary, evidently; and what on earth was she doing living in Darlinghurst? That was a question the answer, to which could wait, anyway, for a day John Hogan set out on his job of being very busy meeting his friends.

But he showed some of his companions, with pride in the "cute little devil," the letter he had received; and he chuckled after in recollection of the small niece who had remembered him.

Like many men who have gone their own way in life, apparently with little regard for family ties, their touches appealed to him, particularly when he encountered them.

As he passed a shop window with a display of toys, he remembered the little niece again. He felt the itch to spend money in his fingers.

"Wonder what age Christine is?" he pondered. "Let's see; it's ten years since Mary married Harry Brown. Well, anyway, that rocking horse can't be out of place. I expect girls like rocking horses as well as boys. It'll surprise her."

It certainly did.

It surprised Mavis, too; and Mrs. Cummings, who followed the delivery of the goods up to the partitioned room she called a flat.

"Did you win the State lottery, dear?" she asked. "But aren't these expensive things, even if you did, to buy for your nieces and nephews?"

"Oh, I didn't buy them! I think they must have been sent by mistake," gasped Christine.

When they had got rid of the landlady, the two girls looked at one another in dismay; and Mavis laughed a little hysterically.

"Oh, isn't it supreme!"  she cried."Look, here the tab on the rocking-horse;  'For little Christine, from Uncle John.' No wonder he wanted you to have a big stocking! And how do you like your boo'ful dolly, Christy? Opens and shuts its eyes, and says 'Mumma'! And the story books....."

For John Hogan, once in the shop, had been beguiled into buying more things than the rocking-horse. It pleased him to imagine the delight of his little niece; the reception he would receive, when he followed on the delivery of his presents.

"It's tragic," gasped Christine. "All this means that we've made a mistake. This is some other John Hogan, with a child niece named Christine Brown— not my uncle, at all!"

"Unless, having never thought much of his relations, he imagines them much as they used to be when he last saw them," suggested Mavis, hope-fully..

"Oh, that's ridiculous! He couldn't possibly fancy that the baby of four, if twenty years ago I was only a small child still. No, it's a mistake. And we've practically spent all that two pounds! We can't return it."

"We are in a hole!" assented Mavis. She laughed uncomfortably. "It's a good, bit of a joke, though, isn't it? The man seems a sport, that's a comfort. I'll write him another letter for you, to-night, explaining that a mistake has been made and telling him that he can have his gifts back, but that he'll have to trust us for the money for a while, as we spent it before we realised the error."

"But suppose he comes to-night ?" cried Christine, frantically. "I feel inclined to run away and hide."

"Me, too; for after all I have to be in this," said Mavis. "But he's evidently not coming tonight. We can go out to Bondi, or somewhere to-morrow and keep out of the way, in case he doesn't get the letter in the morning; and we can put out the lights to-night and tell Mrs. Cummings to say we're out. But in the meantime, I don't feel inclined to let the good things we've bought go to waste. I was reckoning on a real meal to-night, and I'm going to have it."

Her optimism regarding the time at their disposal, however, was misplaced. The rap on the door drove both girls to a breathless tense silence, but the "They were both in only a moment ago, they must be there," of Mrs. Cummings settled the possibility that they might remain still until the rapper departed. So the door was opened.

It revealed in John Hogan a youngish man with the appearance of one used to prosperity and good; times ; a good looking and well groomed man, who looked at them both quizzically as he said : "I was looking for my little niece, Christine Brown."

They both began explaining the situation together, embarrassed by the look in his eyes, and conscious that their confusion probably made their explanations less convincing than they should have been.

"Suppose we forget it," he said. "I came here fully expecting to be kissed by my little niece and dandle her on my knee; but the mistake has given me the pleasure of meeting two very charming young ladies. In the circumstances it's surely possible to do away with formalities and allow us to regard one another as friends. I'm prepared to consider the whole thing a very good bargain for me, if we can only have something to eat together, and you will allow me to take you to the theatre.'

He arranged it all masterfully, in spite of all protests, half-hearted in the feeling of how they had been indebted to. him. They could not but ask him to share the food his money had bought. The visit to the theatre was something that in ordinary circumstances would have been delightful to them; but the embarrassment of their relations with this man created a discomfort it was hard-to overcome, in spite of the ease of his manner and his deference.

It was late before the cloven hoof manifested itself. They had declined supper after the theatre, putting a check on his masterfulness there, but had yielded upon the matter of the taxi, in which, as a sign of her displeasure, he had readily, relinquished a tendency to make advances to Mavis. And they reached their home in due course.

"Not asking me in to supper?" he asked, as if surprised.

"Oh; sorry! We couldn't! Mrs. Cummings, our landlady, wouldn't have that sort of thing in any case. You've been very good, Mr. Hogan, and we've enjoyed ourselves immensely," said Christine nervously, hurrying the farewells.

He detained Mavis as she moved towards the door.

"Oh, look," he said, "there's, surely a kiss before we part? You know, you admitted you wrote me that letter. I'm a man of the world, and I don't mind a little joke; but that tale of an uncle was just a bit thin, wasn't it?"

IN THE MORNING Christine woke to find Mavis with tears glistening on her cheeks.

"It's dreadful to think that he should think what he thinks about us!" she said.

"You had to break away from him, and shut the door in his face!" Christine reminded her. "What a pig of a man to behave like that!"

"Oh, I don't know that he deserves to be called a pig. He doesn't. Think of how it must appear to him— as if that letter was just a trick to attract his notice, knowing he was a free spender. And we live in Darlinghurst ! I'm ashamed to think he should have the fancy of us that he has, but I don't blame him!"

"Well, it'll dissipate his ideas if he comes up to-day and finds we're out. That's what we'll be. We'll go to Bondi, taking food with us."

"As you like; but he'll still think the worst of us, I'm afraid," said Mavis dispiritedly. She caught Christine's questioning look and laughed, a little joyously.

"Well, our merry Christmas with a rich uncle is napoo; but anyway we can't starve or eat lamb's fry."

They were both in the dumps.

"I feel, myself, as if I could write to George and throw up the sponge," said Christine, despondently. "And I'm wondering how George will, feel about it, if I do."

With very little heart they began to prepare for their excursion; the gladness they had felt, even as they laughed at starvation, was damped. In Christine's eyes were tears, as she packed plates, and Mavis knew she was wondering whether her line of retreat to the safety of George's arms was cut off by a change of his heart; her own feelings were miserable in a way she could not explain.

And then the unbelievable happened. The sharp rap on the door, they thought, was probably that of Mrs. Cummings; but the door had hardly been opened when Christine was gathered in a pair of strong arms.

"George!" she gasped. "You've found me!"

"Glad?" he demanded.

"Oh, so glad, George!" she cried.

"And would you mind explaining," said a voice from behind him, "that it was through me telling a funny story over a couple of drinks this morning; of how I was mistaken for an elderly uncle, that led to you finding your direction."

As John Hogan, way being made for him in the doorway, entered the flat, George put in a word of explanation.

"When I saw the name of Hogan's niece I knew it was you, Christine."

"You might add that, after you had wanted to knock me down for making a joke about a friend of yours, I apologised freely; and when you said you were going to see if you couldn't get a wedding ceremony going, I claimed the privilege of coming along to apologise for any doubts I might have exhibited, and some conduct of my own, in the hope of acting as best man. Don't you think I might be included in your Merry Christmas?"

And, actually, he was, a fact that helped Mavis to be us happy as any of the four on an occasion that bloomed from barrenness into festivity.

____________________

11: Obsession

Sydney Mail 28 Dec 1932

'WHEN this man Carson comes, show him right in; and see that we are left alone,' said Hooke, twisting a chair into a position before his desk and measuring how the light rays would fall from the window upon anyone sitting there. A grim smile of satisfaction puckered on his lips; he would be able from his seat at the desk to watch every quiver of Carson's face. He became aware that Maud Carruthers, instead of going, was standing, with a queer look on her face, looking at him.

'He seems to be very desperate,' she said.

'You needn't have any fear for me,' he said.

'I haven't.' She approached the desk and leaned over it towards him, earnestness in her manner. 'It is for him. The poor man is nearly broken. When he came yesterday and pleaded with me to get you to see him he nearly went on his knees. He nearly cried. He almost raved. He has a wife and children—'

Hooke was surprised, and showed it in his stare. 'Whatever happens to Carson, he deserves it,' he snapped.

'His wife and children don't,' said his secretary quickly.

'His wife does.'

'Then his children don't.'

He stared at her again, angrily; her face flooded with red, but she stared back unflinchingly.

'Miss Carruthers, kindly mind your own business. Whatever Carson told you, , you know nothing about this case.'

'It's not like you, Mr. Hooke,' she said, a struggle with tears in her voice, as she continued to stand up to him. 'You are kind to people usually, in spite of pretending not to be inclined that way. But with this Mr. Carson—'

'You can go, Miss Carruthers,' he snapped. 'I won't need you again after Carson arrives; so you can go whenever you like.'

Rebuffed, tears in her eyes because of it, she suddenly abandoned her intention of pleading further with him and moved to the door. There was a grace in her movement which caused his eye to follow her.

'Miss Carruthers,' he said, holding her as she reached the door, 'to-morrow, when this matter is settled, I'll get you to have lunch with me, and I'll explain the business.'

'When this matter is settled I don't want to have lunch with you!' The words snapped out vehemently, and in an instant the door was closed behind her.

HOOKE smiled grimly. It was amusing to think that after he had looked and planned for this moment for years, a slip of a girl who happened to be his secretary should try to turn him aside from the enjoyment of his revenge.

He had sworn to himself that Carson should pay— Lena, too. Surely they deserved to pay! Hooke's mind flashed back to the time the news had come to him in France, and the madness that came upon him. It was a despicable thing; he and Lena might not have got on too well together, for she hated poverty; it had been almost a relief to get away from her, even to the war, which, after all, was not such a bad. war to those who took it easily. He had made sacrifices for her, going on the fractional pay the married soldier drew. It was revolting, to think that she should do what she had done; that, with her husband away fighting, she should have turned to this liaison with a man who stayed at home— a cold-footer.... On leave, in a freakish moment he had flung back to Lena sufficient evidence to enable her to get a divorce. Why should he have done that— making matters easy for them?

AFTER the war he had lingered until the last of the troops returned. The necessity of providing for Lena having ceased with her divorce, he had money to spend, and could find hectic enjoyments in the metropolis of the world. But the dawdling had given no satisfaction; the mad anger at her betrayal haunted him until—

The train of his thought was interrupted, in the middle of a gust of anger at the recollection of the torture he had suffered, by the opening of the door.

Miss Carruthers stood there for only a moment; then she was gone, and Carson came into the room, cringingly. Hooke noted, with satisfaction, the palsy of his hands.

'Look, Hooke,' he said, 'you're a business man, and I want to talk sensibly to you about that bill of mine. If you enforce it now you'll get probably nothing. It'll only bring a crash, and I'm so deep in it that everything will go. Give me six months and you'll have the money in full.'

'You know I don't want that,' said Hooke, an icy significance in his tone. It tore from Carson the mask he had tried to assume.

'For God's sake, Hooke, can't you have any mercy? I admit what I did to you, but heaven knows I've suffered for it. You surely don't mean to carry revenge to the limit, now that all these years have passed?'

'I've suffered a bit myself,' said Hooke grimly.

'Yes, but— look at you! Look at me! You're prosperous; you don't look as if you are unhappy. Why should you want to break me?'

'Sit down and I'll tell you,' said Hooke calmly. 'For three years I went mad when I learnt what you and Lena had done to me. I dreaded even to return to Australia, to find that the reception that was waiting for other men was not there for me. Then, quite suddenly, all the anger I felt settled into a purpose— a determination to make you and Lena pay. I concentrated on that. I came back, and didn't find any difficulty in getting a footing. I built up steadily with the idea of smashing you. And now I've done it!'

'I didn't know that it was you all the time; I have been hit right and left,' said Carson miserably.

'It was me!' said Hooke, with satisfaction. 'I've been undermining you for years. I've given premiums upon occasion to acquire your liabilities and harass you for settlement. And now you— the man who took another man's wife when he was away at the war— you came to me crawling.'

'When I gave Goldsmith that bill—'

'I was Goldsmith,' said Hooke. 'If you hadn't been so frantic for money you'd have wondered how a moneylender like Goldsmith would advance such a sum on such terms.'

'What good will it do you?' mumbled Carson helplessly. 'It will smash me, of course— everything will go and you'll get nothing.'

'It will do more than that,' said Hooke. 'What about Carter's endorsement on the renewal?'

Carson leapt from the chair shaking, but sat down again with an attempt to assume calmness. 'What about it?' he said.

'You know,' challenged Hooke. 'We— Goldsmith and I— only gave you the chance of that renewal to land you properly. Of course, we knew that Carter wouldn't put on his signature again after the Glengarry Company exposure; you told Goldsmith so yourself when you tried to get him to take another endorsement. But you were desperate. You got Carter's signature— or something that looks like it. And you know the penalty for forgery.

CARSON'S jaw sagged directly he saw what was coming; before the end his head was sunk into his hands... Hooke, staring at him, tried to gloat upon his complete humiliation, but somehow failed.

'l can understand your feeling for Lena and myself, perhaps,' said Carson between his hands, 'but the children haven't done you any harm.'

'I'm sorry for the children,' said Hooke coldly. 'If Lena lets them go I'm prepared to pay for them at a school.'

'If Lena lets them go?' asked Carson blankly, uncovering his face. 'It's for me to say.'

'Carson, within a week or so you'll either be in gaol— or out of the world. I'm not going to take any action about that bill until to-morrow; that'll give you time to take what most men would regard as the best way.'

He had risen with an air of finality, and Carson rose, too, staring at him fascinated. 'Lena will be the one to decide. If she likes to give up the children I'll see about the school. But she'll have to give them up and fend for herself. She deserves punishment, too.'

'You— you want me to commit suicide? You— you want to murder me?'

'In olden days it used to be done with a sword,' said Hooke. 'They don't permit that nowadays.'

He led the way towards the door with a gesture of dismissal, but a sharp laugh caused him to turn. It was to see a different Carson, upright and defiant.

'All right, Hooke! You've shown me the way. I'll do it; and much good may it do you. I wonder I didn't do it before— long ago! It was only the kids held me. Let me tell you, Hooke, that when I am dead it is I who will have the revenge— when you think of how you ruined a man and killed him! You'll think of yourself as a murderer; and you'll think, then, of how ungrateful you were to me!'

'Ungrateful to you?'

'That's what I said. You know what living with Lena was— you went away to the war to escape from it. And I know what it is, too. Good God! If I did wrong to you in what we did when you were at the war I've paid for it; it is only the children that have held me. And you might have had all that instead of me, but for me.'

HOOKE stared at him, realising suddenly a strange new point of view.

'And think of all I've done for you! I've made you!' Carson laughed crazily. 'You were just a clerk before you went to the war; and where do you suppose you would have got to, living with Lena? It was easy for you with your war distinctions and the rank you had won to get on when you returned. It gave you a standing.' He laughed deliriously again. 'And here you are, the chap who used to be a clerk, rich, prosperous, and happy, with a fine girl like that secretary of yours in love with you!'

'What?' cried Hooke. It was as if his obsession had been a cloud about him, and the crazy mouthings of the half-demented Carson were showing him things to which he had been blind.

'And I'm the man to whom you owe all this— to me, whom you've ruined! Well, have your rotten triumph, if you want it. I'm going, and—'

'Hold hard a moment, Carson,' called Hooke, and he could see Maud Carruthers, who had apparently not gone home as instructed, through the now opened door, as Carson paused.

'I'm not serious about that bill; in fact, I'm going to cancel the liability. Miss Carruthers, write a letter to-morrow to Mr. Goldsmith instructing him to return Mr. Carson's bill to him.'

'I knew you would do something like that,' said Maud when the overwhelmed Carson, weeping in his relief, had gone.

Her eyes were glowing, and Hooke felt grateful to Carson for showing him something to which he had been blind.

'I said we'd have lunch together when the business was settled,' said Hooke. 'As you have stayed, supposing we make it dinner to-night instead?'

________________

12: Stars

World's News (Sydney)  1 Feb 1933

THE end of things had come, as far as the little farm and its once bright hopes were concerned. Eva felt in her heart a finality that was terrible. She wished that she had not allowed Ted to go into the township; for the worst of her terror was concerning the desperation she knew he felt.

A cold hand gripping her heart, she wandered if she would ever see him again.

Eva wandered out on to the verandah, peering anxiously into the darkness, that thick, velvety darkness that visits upon the world a cloak of mystery. There was some mist in the heavens, obscuring the stars, which only gave evidence of their existence by a dim twinkle here and there. The trees down by the creek shouldered out the more neutral darkness with a pitchy blur; beyond that there was nothing definite, but, very far off, one or two yellow dots of light, only making the comfort of neighbors' homes seem more distant, and the loneliness around her more complete. Use croaking of the frogs in the creek had, to-night, an eerie sound.

"Ted! Ted!" she called. "Hurry!"

His cry was involuntary, something of an hysterical effort to force upon herself the fancy that he might be near enough to hear, and, hearing, speed his footsteps. It went out to an emptiness of night, seeming to allow room for a fresh rush of loneliness to enter her heart.

There had been times she had loved nights like these, sitting with him upon this same verandah, with the ash in the bowl of his pipe glowing in the darkness. There had been a sweet contentment in being shut away with him from the rest of the world; and in the mystery of the night, the hopes of which they talked softly seemed to be drawing nearer to them.

But now there was only terror in the darkness and loneliness. Terror of the future— and for Ted.

He had promised to be home before nightfall. Knowing her nervous condition, he should have been home. She felt a querulous indignation at his delay, but checked it, feeling more sorry for the desperation in him that was the explanation, than for herself. He might be drinking a little, but that would be part of the desperation; lingering on in the hope that the drinks would open the heart of some friend with a little of the money to spare that was so badly needed.

He was not quite fair in trying to keep from her the desperation he felt; it forced upon her the necessity of pretending she did not know, and only made her own uncertainty the more torturing.

"Cheer up, Evie," he had said, when leaving that morning. "Carroll practically promised to lend me a couple of quid; directly I've seen him, I'll be off home again."

"You haven't got to see the Bank?" she asked.

"Oh, I'll drop in," he returned buoyantly. "That'll only take a few minutes."

She knew the buoyancy was false; knew he had gone into the little township with sagging heart, fearful of the troubles, the repulses, he would meet there. He shut out the full sympathy she would have given him; she would

have liked to have told him that eves IX they had to let everything go, all the result of their years of struggling and hoping, it would not matter as long as they were together. Perhaps they would be happier with the load of anxieties off their shoulders.

She knew that there was some sort of a shame in him for having failed her—as if he could help the failure, he who had struggled so hard! He was the man; he wanted to shoulder the burden that was breaking him. She could not hurt him by telling him so; but he was only making the fears that uncertainty breeds more terrible to her.

His lateness meant that he had had a day of disappointments. She tried to forget her own almost hysterical condition, remembering that, and pitying him. And time and again an awful thought swept through her.

He might be so desperate that he would not come back. Ashamed to face her with an acknowledgment of complete failure, he might... When his Insurance had lapsed he had said that, after all, if anything happened to him. the boys would see that a man's wife and kids did not starve. Sometimes a woman was better off without a man who had been a failure. There was help for a lonely woman which would not be given when she had a man with her.

The thought made her sick. Restlessly she re-entered the house, and turned up the lamp. She would have liked the house to blaze with lights to shut out the loneliness; but the little they had of everything 'had to be spared grudgingly.

The child on the couch stirred, muttering. It was feverish. She hoped it was not an illness. That, as well as herself, should have brought Ted home. She comforted the child, and rearranged its pillow, glad of the occupation, filling in time in the hope of hearing him call and the crunch of his footsteps.

A sharp faintness struck her; with it, a panic. Supposing Ted did stay away; and supposing, because of the anxiety that had been racking her....

Partly to assuage the pain, partly seeking distraction from her thoughts, she walked about the room. The war mementoes he had so prized, souvenirs be had smuggled past watchful eyes to treasure in his civilian days, comforted her. Ted would not be a deserter.

"You had to stick it," he would say. "It doesn't matter how bad things woe you couldn't let your mates down, whilst you were alive. That's what it would mean if you didn't stick it."

Ted would have that same feeling with her; she was his mate, and he would stick, however bad things were. She had often wanted to get with him on the same terms as his cobbers in France— the mateship about which he often spoke so glowingly.

"I believe a man would be ready to go back again— just for that," he would say. "Why, a man would die for a chap he'd only known a few days— just because he was a cobber in the same crowd. It'd be equal shares in everything they had. It didn't matter if one chap had no money, as long as his mate had some."

"I like to feel that we're like that," Ted," she had told him, once. "We've got our war, too, to win through; and we're cobbers in the same way."

"Of course we are, Evie," he had said, patting her hand. But she had felt that there was merely indulgence in that response; being a woman she could never get that footing. Because, in France, the man who was prepared to die for his cobber expected his cobber to be prepared to die for him. He, in their life, had the attitude that it was the man who must do the fighting. Blindly he overlooked how much of the fighting she had been doing in her management, her infinite striving to make the most of a little. Even in her infinite patience with him.

But still, in another way, he was her mate; and he would not desert. That reassurance gave her courage; and, handling his relics of the war, with remembrances of him in each one, helped to pass the time. He was bound to be home, soon.

There was the little bundle in a piece of waterproof sheeting. He always enjoyed telling the story of how he had smuggled that out of France and out to Australia, in spite of kit inspections.

"An SOS. I always thought of that as a sign of our mateship. Suppose you were attacked in the trenches, and in danger of being wiped out; up went your SOS! And, directly, the artillery, kilos behind you, perhaps, leaped into action to aid you; and support rushed up from the reserve lines. They were cobbers, springing to your assistance if you were in trouble.

"There was a time we were down near Meteren. We'd pushed the Germans back a bit, there, and they tried to turn the tables. Sprung a surprise attack on us. My platoon was in close supports, and had just finished a fatigue— wiring— when the attack came. We were just making ourselves comfortable, when up went the two reds and a green, and in a minute our artillery was in it— pouring shells into No Man's Land to cut off supports for the attack, and heaving heavy stuff at the German guns to keep 'em quiet. We were up in a rush, and going through. We reached the trench in front of us, just in the nick. The Huns were in it. There was one of our chaps penned right in the corner with two Fritzes trying to bayonet him when I came down on them. I shall never forget the look on the chap's face as we shook hands. 'I thought my number was up,' he said. 'I'll do. as much for you some day, old man.' "

Once, long after the first time he had told the story, Eva could not forbear a sarcasm.

"Was that your friend Shaw?" she asked.

Ted winced. He had been certain that Shaw would lend him £20, which would have greatly helped the under-capitalised farm. Shaw had sent him profuse apologies, a story of his own difficulties and a ten-shilling note.

"No, it's not him. Things are different in civilian life. You don't seem to be able to keep up the old spirit," he said defensively, but a little bitterly. "It was team work there; and you're forced to be everyone for himself here. We're all having a battle for it. Shaw would have lent the money if he could."

But at other times Ted spoke glowingly about his trophy.

"The way I've kept it, the SOS ought to work as good as if it was new," he said. "The night we fix up the last payment on this farm, I'm going to send it up. All the diggers around here will wonder what's up; they'll come chasing over to find out, and we'll have a beano!"

It had become an emblem of shattered hopes, but Ted would not admit that. His idea was born of the era of bright hope when it seemed that a few prosperous years might clear them of debt. But the debt was worse now than ever; the absence of money had crippled them always, and kept on crippling them.

"A hundred pounds and I could make good with the place, even now," Ted had said only a few days ago. "But where's a man to get a hundred quid?"

Eva put down the little packet, feeling heartsick for poor Ted's disillusionments. He did not tell her of all of them, except those about which he had been specially optimistic; but he bad sent out many SOS's of another kind. There had been no response like that that Ted used to glow in describing. No artillery of sympathy rushed into action; no bayonet of aid came flashing in response. The war mateship had returned to civilian life and its coolness— or circumscribed action.

Eva's interest suddenly lapsed. As she saw that the cheap alarm clock showed 8.40, her panic came into her heart again. She moved once more on to the verandah, peering into the darkness, listening intently for the sound of a foot on the road that was smudged in darkness, looking for the twinkle of a swaying light. Then she "Coo-eed!" and was frightened at the sound of her voice in the tremendous silence. Even the frogs had ceased to croak.

It struck her as a new sickening thought that he might have met with an accident. She wouldn't allow herself to think that! More likely that, staying on in the desperate hope of getting some money for the need that was facing them, he had been lulled into forgetfulness of the passage of time.

He was lingering, and it was not fair. She needed him; needed his presence to. console her in an infinite loneliness that was full of fears. It didn't matter so much about the money. They could manage.

A sharp pain seized her, and with it a faintness. She fought against it. It would be terrible if she was to allow faintness to take possession of her here, with only the children asleep in the house. No help. And the children perhaps frantic, if they awoke.

She was half swooning, but thinking desperately; and somehow that SOS seemed to be the basis of her thought. If that SOS went into the air someone would see it, if Ted did not himself. It would be a matter of excited comment, and Ted would hear and understand. He would come home, money or no money.

He had explained to her how it was fired; shown her how he meant to fire it when the celebration worthy of its use was due.

She mastered herself suddenly. A purpose took possession of her, banishing the weakness.

A CAR STOOD in the dark roadway, and the well-dressed man, about to enter It, paused to speak to the man with the swinging lantern who stood by in his shirt-sleeves.

"Thanks for the directions, digger," he said. "I'm sorry for having disturbed you, but if I hadn't I'd have clean missed the township."

"Glad to be of help, mister. You're a digger yourself, aren't you?"

"I had my share of it," laughed the other. He gave a start of surprise and seized the other's arm. "Look at that! Reminds you of France, doesn't it? The SOS!"

The red and green stars had shot into the air above the darkness of the trees, and seemed to hang there.

"That's from Ted's place," cried the man in shirt-sleeves, excitedly. "There must be trouble. We ought to see what it is. You've got your car here; it's a bit out of your way, but—"

"Jump in and tell me the way to go, and we'll be there in a few minutes," returned the car-owner, equally excitedly. The car roared into action, just as a sharp-hitting eighteen pounder might have done, and purred along the narrow road, which, in spite of the bright headlights, was too rutty and uneven for speeding. The man in the shirt-sleeves gave abrupt directions now and again.

Suddenly a figure stepped into the roadway, before the headlights, his hands up.

"For God's sake, give me a lift!" he cried. "My wife must have sent up a signal from my place— an SOS I had as a souvenir. I saw it coming along the road."

"Jump in, Ted," cried the man in the shirt-sleeves, and gave him a hand to draw him in. "We're going there— we saw it!"

The car was in action again, the man at the wheel too intent on his driving to give more than a casual glance at his new passenger. He heard the men talking in the back.

"You were walking it, Ted?"

"Had too. The neddy died two days ago."

"Hard luck! You're having your share, Ted. And with the missus—"

There was trouble, tragedy, in what they were saying; the tragedy of overburdens, and effort gone for nothing. The driver noted it with sympathy.

"Pull up here!" cried Ted, sharply.

He was out of the car, and had vaulted the fence before they had fairly stopped. The other men followed close upon his heels, and saw a woman, sobbing hysterically, fling herself in his arms.

"I had to do It, Ted. I wanted you —and I was afraid! Of what had happened to you, and what might have happened here."

He drew her into the house, up the steps, down which she had rushed to him, and across the verandah. The others, following, stood discreetly in the doorway, whilst he tenderly placed his wife in a chair.

"It didn't matter about the money, Ted. We can manage, somehow. It doesn't matter about the place even! What I wanted was you near me."

"I'm near you, darling," he responded, tenderly.

"Excuse me," said the car-owner. "My car's here. It's at your service if you want it."

"I'll bring my missus down, Ted," cried the man in the shirt-sleeves. "With this gentleman's car, I can have her here in half an hour."

"Thanks, Harry," said Ted.

"Do you mind?" queried Harry. For answer the man stepped with him onto the verandah, but paused there.

"You can drive, I suppose? Well, you take the car for your wife. I want to stay."

"Right-oh!" The man in the shirt-sleeves jerked his arm towards the outer darkness, where there were signs of small swinging lights; the grin on his face was obvious even in the darkness.

"That SOS has roused the boys; look at all them lanterns— over there— and there— and at the back! The mob'll soon be here to see what the trouble is about. We've been talking for some time of getting up a subscription for Ted and his missus; they've had a rough spin."

"You get your wife," said the stranger. Thoughtfully he turned into the house as Harry sped away.

"Hope you don't mind me intruding," he said, "but I happen to have got a glimmering of some trouble. You're a digger; so am I. And I've the luck to be prosperous. As one digger to another, what's the position?"

The lamp shone upon Ted's grateful but haggard face. The stranger's eyes were upon it curiously.

"It's a little far gone. I'm afraid— the farm." said Ted, despairingly. "If I had a hundred quid I could pull through and make a good thing of it, even now; but—"

"Well, why not a hundred quid?" Remanded the stranger indifferently.

Ted stared at him, and so did Eva, gripping her husband's arm as she looked up

"Do you happen to remember a trench at Meteren and another night of an SOS?" asked the stranger. "I only knew you as Snowy then; but you did me a very good turn."

Ted leaped across the room with outstretched hand.

"Why, you're Pedlar— the chap in that trench!" he cried.

"I think I mentioned then," said the stranger, with a laugh, "that I might do as much for you some time. Well, I got your SOS tonight."

Eva's heart as she watched them, the one man with a mighty relief in his face, the other with a genuine eagerness to repay an old debt, was uplifted with a great exultation. It was her SOS that had saved the situation is the little trench they held in the world's hard economic war. And but for the intense desperation that had come to her she would never have sent into the air the stars which had brought this useful friend to their doors.

_________________

13: My Elephant

Sydney Mail 29 Nov 1933

EVERYBODY, I expect, has felt a flattered delight when a dog he once petted or fed rushes up to him with tail flogging the atmosphere and other signs of pleased recognition. It stands to reason that when the recognition comes from an elephant the delight must be greater. The greeting, a blare of trumpeting which seemed to frighten even the motor-cars, for one near at hand suddenly started off and showed a tendency to dash on to the pavement, and a trunk agitatedly swaying in my direction, were rather startling.

'Mustapha knows you, mister; you must have fed 'im some time,' said the attendant who, for some purpose, probably advertisement, was leading the huge animal through the streets.

A recollection flashed into my mind. Matilda and I had decided to take some small relations to see a circus that was making a pause in our suburban area on its way either to or from the city. On the way through the animal tent little Claude had dropped a bag containing some delightful confection purchased on the way; as I picked it up a grey trunk swooped. No doubt the elephant did not mean to be impolite; it imagined that I was intending to make it an offering. When I realised what was happening there was a wail from little Claude, checked by astonishment as he watched his confection, bag and all, being crunched with obvious relish in the mouth of the big animal.

The maker of that confection would have been complimented at its reception. It so tickled the palate of the elephant that, as he swallowed it, he gave a trumpet of delight; the other elephants made it a chorus, apparently rejoicing with him. All the animals in the menagerie, deluded with the idea that it was feeding-time, sprang, to life and sound, with full-throated roars, grunts, and neighs. Never was there such a tumult of applause for a mere confection. As Mustapha's trunk extended pleadingly for more Matilda turned round sharply, naturally startled, as was everybody in the tent, by the uproar.

'What on earth have you been doing, Percy?' she demanded, as if she suspected me of sticking a pin into the elephant.

That the memory of that gift, quite unintended, should have remained with the elephant was pleasing; the keeper's words and the recollection overcame my first shock of fear. I have always been fond of animals, anyway; and it is not every man who is recognised as an old friend by an elephant. As I patted its trunk and, later, fed it with apples from an adjacent shop, whilst a rather awed crowd, quickly gathered, looked on, I felt myself something of a public character.

'An elephant never forgets,' remarked the attendant. I had read that somewhere.

ALTHOUGH I had noticed that the attendant had some difficulty in getting the animal to move on its way as I departed on mine, I fancied the incident was closed until, as I reached a street corner, I heard a sudden sharp trumpeting. As I turned I saw the elephant coming along the street at a swift run, ears flapping and trunk extended, trumpeting what were apparently appeals to me to wait and take it with me.

It was absurd. It was also rather alarming. The prospect of having an elephant following you around the street is not an agreeable one, however fond you may be of animals. I decided that the best course was to dodge out of the sight of the animal. Having dodged round the corner, I even forgot my dignity and broke into a run.

A loud trumpet, however, told me that the elephant had reached the corner and had seen me. Something like desperation seized me. There was a hotel on the corner I had just reached; turning into the next street, out of sight, I made a bolt through the swing doors.

I heaved a sigh of relief as I ordered my drink. It seemed that I had safely eluded the fatuously fond animal, and I did not mind the curious glances of the other customers in the bar, who probably thought that a flight from the police explained my rather precipitate entrance.

A YELL from some of the customers startled me. I suppose that an elephant's trunk, seemingly unattached, swaying in the air between swing doors must have been alarming even to people who were quite sober; but it was when a joyful trumpet announced that Mustapha had located me, and Mustapha, with some difficulty and, by the cracklings of wood and glass, apparently carrying some of the hotel fixings with him, began to enter the bar that the real scare started.

I have never seen a crowded bar clear so quickly. I cleared myself, through a far door, ignoring the rather pathetic appeals of Mustapha for me to stay with him. The man I collided with as I emerged from the hotel was the attendant, panting after his run and, I should say, slightly annoyed.

'Here,' he said, 'you can't go about stealing elephants.'

'I don't,' I retorted! 'Your elephant is in the bar there. Steal elephants! Why, at home we've got canaries, a pet Pom, and two cats—'

He didn't wait to hear more; he was probably anxious about the sounds of breaking glass, mingled with trumpetings, that came from inside the bar. It is hard for an elephant to get in through swing doors, but much harder for it to get out. For my own part I thought it best to go whilst the going was good.

I FELT that my adventure, which had been rather upsetting, was something to laugh at as, later, I boarded a tram. That attendant should have had more sense than to lead the animal, after he had recovered it, along tram routes where it was likely to see again a man for whom it had taken such a violent fancy.

Mustapha announced that it had seen me by another of those joyful trumpets I was beginning to dread. Ignoring the frantic commands of its keeper, it broke into a gallop to catch the tram, which had passed it, carrying me. The tram passengers rose to their feet in a mass to stare at the unusual sight of an elephant running beside a tram just as a dog does when its master is on board. Motorists and cyclists dived into the kerb or speeded to get out of the path of the careering beast.

If the tram driver had only had the sense to keep going we might have shaken off the animal; but it caught us at every stop, and once put its trunk appealingly into the compartment where I was seated. What was I to do? I have had no experience in the management of elephants.

I said, very sternly, 'Go home, sir!'

But it had no effect. My dread was about what would happen when the journey ended and the elephant claimed me. The way out presented itself when I saw Travers's car held up at a street intersection waiting for the tram to pass. Just as the tram started I dropped off on the blind side and, dashing over to Travers, begged for a lift home.

THE elephant, which this time had only just caught the tram as it restarted, followed it for a few yards and then checked, having sensed my absence. It turned as it halted, in a bewildered way, and it caught sight of us just as Travers's car crossed the street, I knew by that joyful trumpet that the chase was on again. It was. As we turned into a straight stretch I saw Mustapha in full pursuit.

'Speed up, Travers,' I said. 'I'm being chased by an elephant.'

'Chased by an elephant!' he exclaimed, as if he thought I had suddenly gone mad.

The animal being on the remote side of the tram, he had not seen it; but as he looked round to see what I was looking at the car gave a jolt which indicated the shock he had received.

'Did you ever stick a pin in it?' he asked, as he got the car steady and accelerated. 'They say an elephant never forgets.'

I was beginning to get a little sick of that. I explained the story hurriedly.

THE sensation that animal made as it ran through the streets was fully reported in the papers; there is no need to deal with it. I do not know how fast an elephant is supposed to travel, but I do know that Travers, who is proud of his car, was unable to throw off the pursuit. There might have been a different tale if it had not been for the traffic policemen who held us up at intersections. It might be said, however, that the toll collectors on the bridge made no attempt to collect toll from the elephant. Looking round, in fact, I noticed what seemed to me to be a bad dereliction of duty on their part. The way they behaved, it did not seem that they had any interest in the collection of tolls at all.

When, some way on, the elephant being temporarily out of sight, I changed into Tolhurst's car, it seemed that a good method of escape had suggested itself. The elephant, when it caught up, would follow Travers's car until it found I wasn't in it. Anyway, I had a long-standing appointment to have dinner with Tolhurst, who, with the friends he had in his car, also going to dinner, laughed heartily when I told the story of the day's events.

I MERELY told Matilda on the 'phone that Tolhurst had asked me to dinner. I did not mention the elephant. Matilda has a rather disagreeable way of treating some of the stories I tell her; I did not like to try her with an elephant.

The dinner was a fine one; you've got to hand it to Tolhurst as a host. Mrs. Tolhurst enjoyed hearing about my adventures, just as the others had done, and with the wireless on, and sparkling conversation, the evening had become very pleasant when the maid entered suddenly.

She seemed upset, and she divided her attention between myself and Jones, the other guest.

'Did either of you gentleman have an elephant?' she asked. 'It's in the garden.'

To say that we were startled was putting it mildly, and Tolhurst himself, who is very proud of his garden, was something more than startled when, peeping cautiously through the blinds, we saw what the elephant was doing to it.

'If that elephant finds I am in the house he will want to come inside,' I said. 'I'd better go; when he finds I am not here he might be quiet. If I stay he might smell me. You could ring up the circus, and they'll take it away in no time. In the meantime, can I get away through the back entrance?'

'The back entrance is at the front,' said Tolhurst. I have always had my doubts about his assertion that there is not a drop of Irish blood in his veins.

THE Tolhursts did not want to run any risk of the elephant wanting to enter the house. Tolhurst got out his car and we drove past the garden swiftly into the street. But I suppose Mustapha must have associated the noise of a motor-car with his last sight of me, for again he gave one of those joyful trumpets which had become a nightmare to me. We got put with a good start, however, although as a precaution— and to finish the bottle of whisky Tolhurst had slipped into his hip-pocket — we made a long detour before going to my home.

When I woke up in the morning my impression was, naturally, that I had been dreaming. If I had been drinking heavily I might have had another impression. If any animal had followed me, it must have been a dog and some fantastic mental derangement had made me turn it into an elephant. I was sleepily deciding that I'd have to see a doctor when Matilda, dressing -gowned, arrived in a manner that woke me up properly.

'I'd like to know, Percy, what you'll be doing next,' she said. 'What are you going to do with this dreadful animal you brought home last night?'

'I brought home an animal?' I said, startled. 'I didn't—'

'Unless you were too drunk to remember,' said Matilda, 'you must know you brought it home. I heard it in the garden all night, and there it is now.'

'Oh, it will make a good watchdog,' I said, still thinking, of the dog theory. I wasn't going to admit that I had been drunk when, most certainly, I wasn't.

'Watchdog!' Matilda virtually howled it. 'Do you mean to say that an elephant can be used as a watchdog?'

Elephant! My heart turned stone cold.

'You'll get rid of it without a moment's delay. All the neighbours have rung up to complain; it's made a wreck of the garden; my poor little Fido is almost in convulsions from barking at it through the window; and there's no milk for breakfast.'

'No milk for breakfast?' I exclaimed. It seemed an anti-climax to me, anyway.

'There's no milk for breakfast,' she repeated. 'Mary tells me that she saw the milkman coming up the side path, and then he saw the elephant. He dropped his can and ran, jumped into his car, and went off at full speed. I expect he had been drinking, too,' she added nastily. 'The milk's sinking into the lawn, and when it turns sour it'll smell most abominably.'

I TRIED to explain matters to Matilda as I got into a few clothes and went down to ring up the circus. Her attitude, however, was most disagreeable.

Someone had left the front door open; the tinkle of the telephone must have roused the elephant's curiosity. When he saw me he again lifted up his voice in joy and came at a run. It did not matter to Mustapha that the hall was a restricted area; he came right through it, carrying the telephone, potted palms, and a hallstand with him. I went through it, too, trying to get away, but it was hopeless. When the elephant joined me in the kitchen garden, where there were nice peas and other things for it to eat, it was strangely ornamented with hats and coats, and had the telephone over its head as if it was in training as a telephonist. It was pleased to be with me, and I decided that the only thing was to stay with it until the circus people arrived.

'This stealing elephants ain't no good; you'll have to pay for it,' were the circus man's first words. It was adding insult to injury.

WORSE was to happen, however, when Mustapha refused to budge without me and I had to walk beside it all the way, while people came to their windows to look at me as if I was part of the circus. I was a weary man by the time I had seen iron shackles put on the animal which had developed such a fancy for me.

I don't know how much the episode is going to cost; that hasn't been settled yet. There are all sorts of damages someone will have to pay. Apart from money, however, it has cost me a lot in peace of mind.

Matilda has a new one against me.

'What can you expect of a man who brings home elephants?' she inquires when she wants to be particularly acrimonious.

___________________

14: Domestic Economy

Sydney Mail, 17 Jan 1934

WHEN Maria suggested that we might effect some needed economy by dispensing with a servant, my agreement was cordial. One of the reasons was Amelia.

It is doubtless some sort of backhanded compliment to myself that Maria seems, when possible, to select her maids from some Museum of Frightful Antiquities; even then they sometimes fail to suit. Josephina, although she was so ugly that I avoided looking at her before breakfast for fear I should lose my appetite, was most obliging and attentive from my point of view; but she disappeared about a week after she began making references to 'the dear master;' and then Amelia arrived.

Amelia, no doubt, in a spirit of revenge for the face with which nature has provided her, bore an implacable hatred for all mankind. It was impossible for men to please her in any shape or form. If they were unmarried they were selfish brutes, thinking of nothing but drinking and their personal enjoyments. Her face was lighted with an unholy joy when a cable in the papers proclaimed that some foreign country had imposed a tax upon bachelors, or had taken other steps to force them into marriage.

My one joy about Amelia was in speculating upon what she would look like if the cable, one day, announced that Hitler had ordered himself to get married. Still, the man who married did not escape her censure. He remained a selfish brute, although, in this case, he was imposing on his poor wife. Amelia, I think, regarded me as a blot upon life; why, I can't think, seeing that I pride myself upon being an amiable person, except that, being a man, I am still happy.

One of her characteristics was a habit of speaking her thoughts aloud, so that people could understand her opinions, while, if challenged, she could deny all knowledge of having spoken. Her habit of muttering that men ought to work and that 'men who are about the house all day are a nuisance' was very irritating.

IT is not my fault that I am, to some extent, an idler. I have often suggested to Maria that I should go into some business, and do my share of the world's work; you see, the capital that produces my own little income is tied up, and it would be necessary for Maria to find the capital. Certainly, as Maria says, I have no knowledge of business, but I have studied the methods of managers of big concerns in the movies. To drive up to my office in a car, look through some letters, dictate a letter to a pretty typist, and then take up my golf sticks and depart— if I wasn't taking the pretty typist to lunch— would suit me to a 'T.' I'm sure I could manage that very well.

Then there would be the army practice to fall back upon. You know, the officer, not knowing some particular drill, would say airily, 'Carry on, sergeant,' it being the sergeant's business to know how. That's why experts are employed. Of course, I would not give myself away. Now and again, after ascertaining what my chief clerk thought about some business matter, I would demur; tell him the matter was one that required careful consideration, and he had better leave the papers with me. Then I'd go out and play golf. Next day, when he asked for a decision, I would say there were still points to be considered, and go out to play bridge. A couple of days later I would inform him, very solemnly, that, after considering matters from all angles, I had reached the conclusion that my chief clerk was right.

I have friends who seem to work like this; Maria, however, declines to agree with my suggestions. Perhaps she, too, has a vision of the pretty typist.

The prospect of losing Amelia was a joyful one; there was, however, another reason for welcoming the change. That was a prospect of Maria being more occupied with her household duties, which would free me from the slavery of being dragged to meetings of the numerous associations with which she is connected, as an escort and a sort of valet for Tootles, her pet Pom. At these gatherings I am known, not as Mr. Pornticket, mind you, but as 'Mrs. Pornticket's husband.' Relief from such duties was to be hailed with joy.

'There is, after all, very little to do in a well-ordered house, with just the two of us. Mrs. Crummies will come as usual,' said Maria.

'It's a splendid idea!' I said enthusiastically.

So Amelia went, and I revelled in the prospects of a new freedom.

IT was after lunch on the first day the departing Amelia had looked after breakfast, managing to break quite a considerable amount of crockery, that the flies began to appear in the ointment. Maria, with, a sudden glance at her watch, became perturbed about the time. She had a meeting to attend, it appeared, and of course there was the washing-up to be attended to.

'You'll have to help me,' she said.

When I objected to having an apron put upon me she made some snappy remarks about the money it cost to keep me decently clad as it was; but a moment later I heard the worst, or the commencement of the worst. Maria's idea about my helping her was that I should do the lot. She would have to hurry, she said.

She came out, dressed, as I was finishing the business 'You'll have to see to the dinner,' she said. 'It's all prepared; but you'll have to peel a few potatoes and shell some peas. Put the meat in the oven....' She gave me full instructions.

I made the mildest of staggered protests about an appointment I had made.

'How can you be so selfish, Herbert?' she said, sharply. 'Don't you realise that this is a meeting of public importance, and that I am one of the speakers on "The Importance of Domestic Science Teaching for Girls"?'

That was unanswerable, of course. It dawned upon me more fully during the next few days that our experiment in domestic economy was not going to turn our precisely as I anticipated. Maria— I daresay justly— regards herself as something of a public woman, and her habit of saying, "Well, someone has to stay at home in case there are any callers" was sometimes almost crushing.

There were other developments, too.

'This is my busy day.' Maria would say, stirring me out of my sleep just when I was enjoying it most, 'Washing day. Before I start I must have a cup of tea. Get up and make it, Herbert.' Because I might have shown a little reluctance, she would go on, warmly: 'You men have no idea what a trying day washing day is, or you wouldn't be so selfish.'

Well, I would get the tea and a little toast, and put it beside her bed, to be rewarded with a nice remark that 'Men never know how to make tea!'

WHEN I returned from my bath and my own morning tea I would find Maria asleep again and the tea cold; but she would wake up to say that she really couldn't start a heavy day without a decent cup of tea, and get me to make another one.

'And, now,' she would say, when I had brought it, 'will you go down and soak the clothes— all you have to do is to run off the water and put fresh water in; and you might, when you're down there, half-fill the copper and light the fire under it. You surely,' she would add with asperity, 'don't object to helping me a little on a trying day like this.'

So I would do all that she wanted, and when I returned Maria would say that, as I was up, she might as well take the opportunity of resting in bed before she made a start; so I had better get the breakfast. Midway through breakfast I would open the door to Mrs. Crummies, who still came regularly to do our washing, and on another day the house cleaning.

A little later— after I had done the washing-up— Maria would arise, put on her clothes, and go out for a day at the pictures, and her blessed associations.

'If I am not back in time for lunch,' she would say, 'you might see that Mrs. Crummies gets some. She expects it.'

Of course, I always knew she would not be back in time for lunch. This procedure became a ritual, in spite of my getting Jones and Barclay and a few others to ring me up, saying that I was urgently wanted to an early morning game of golf, which was almost a challenge.

Well, I am an amiable man; the way matters were going, after my bright anticipations, was pretty hot. I pride myself that I have a sense of humour, and I told myself that if Maria liked this sort of business she could have all that she wanted.

THE evening Maria came home from presiding at the meeting of the 'Good Housewives' Society,' and caught me at the door in my new array, talking to a vegetable hawker, who had a grin all over his face, she was shocked.

'Herbert, what is the meaning of this?' she demanded when the door was closed on the hawker, and, from our window, he could be seen outside the gate telling his mate, with glee, all about it. 'What do you mean by making a fool of yourself like that— going to the door with a woman's apron on?'

'Well, I think this apron much prettier than the other ones,' I said, evenly. 'Those tucks are quite dainty, aren't they?'

Maria ignored the flippant remark.

'And with potato dirt all over it!' stormed Maria. She had no idea how much trouble I had taken to rub that potato dust in. 'With your sleeves rolled up and your hands on your hips, as if you were a slushy! And dirt marks all over your face!'

'Well, you know, dear,' I said, 'the house-work has to be done, and—'

'Who asks you to do housework?' she stormed; but she checked when she met my eye, and spoke rather piteously as she went on: 'Fancy if any of our friends came here and saw you like that!'

'As a matter of fact,' I said, 'one or two— Mrs. Perkins and Mrs. Daly— have called. But it can't be helped.'

I knew that would give her a shock— especially Mrs. Perkins and Mrs. Daly! It took her a little time to recover herself.

'It's one of your silly jokes, of course. Don't do it again,' she snapped.

All the evening she was thoughtful; but I don't, think that she guessed what was coming to her next day, when a meeting of the committee of the auxiliary of the local Domestic Science School was to be held in the house.

There was quite a sensation amongst the committee when tea was served. Maria had given me the afternoon off, so to speak, and didn't know I was home. My cue was when I heard Maria ask the committee to excuse her while she prepared a cup of tea. I don't suppose that that committee had ever seen tea served by such a maid as that moment appeared with the tea-wagon. I pride myself that I was perfect, from the white frilled cap on my head to the apron sash daintily tied in a bow against the small of my back.

It has always been my contention that Maria lacks a sense of humour. She was, I am sure, the only woman in the room who was not amused; but I defied the look in her eyes as I said: 'I took the liberty, ma'am, of making some scones myself to take the place of the ones you brought from the shop. They were not too fresh.'

Mrs. Carson, who had been stuffing her handkerchief into her mouth, was the first to explode; of course, the others followed. Even Maria laughed as she explained that I was always playing jokes.

'If he went on the stage he would make a fortune as a comedian,' she said, with an apparent enthusiasm, which was not borne out in her subsequent remarks to me. Everybody knows that a comedian is anything but a fool.

'I thought it would please you— taking off your shoulders all the anxiety about tea. Anyway, what's the worry? You know what the minister said last Sunday: 'We should have nothing in our private lives that we are ashamed to show in public.' And, as I'm a sort of—'

'Oh, shut up!' said Maria, vulgarly and rudely. 'You're insufferable! As if a man with any amount of time on his hands can't help a very busy woman just a little without making a fool of himself!'

'Just a little?' I suggested, mildly.

'In any case, I think we may have a servant again. Doing without has its drawbacks. Yet, why should we? The scheme has been working very well but for your incurable habit of making a fool of yourself — and me.'

'Oh, has it?' I remarked caustically.

NATURALLY I was more sick of the business than Maria; and I was not going to lose the advantage I had secured by failure to follow it up.

With a joyful heart I had heard something of the raps that had come Maria's way about the prominence I had given to my housewifely activities. When the local meeting to form a branch of the Good Housewives Association finished, one of the first people Maria, who had been the big figure in the gathering, met as she emerged from the hall, surrounded by committee-women, was her husband.

I had already occasioned a lot of interest, especially amongst the small fry, who followed me about as if I was a curiosity. I was attired in an apron— one of the frilly ones; on my head was the sun-bonnet Mrs. Crummies uses when she hangs the washing on the line; my pants were tucked up to show my garters and as a sort of earnest of hard work; and I was in my shirt sleeves, which were rolled up; whilst over one arm I carried a market-basket nicely laden with vegetables.

For a usually well-dressed citizen to appear in such a guise was naturally a sensation. Maria, talking to her friends, was upon me before she realised my presence. As I smiled amiably at her she seemed stunned.

'What on earth—' she began. 'I believe,' I said, 'that one of the tenets of your association is to buy cheap. There is no doubt the tradesmen who call upon us profiteer abominably, so I decided to run up, just as I was, and buy from the shops. Are you coming home now, dear?'

Maria could hardly refuse, since it was in the direction of home she had been moving, to accompany me. The women who had been at her meeting stood still and stared after us; people rushed out to the shop fronts to have a look; and the children streamed behind us, making ribald and joyous remarks. Maria could stand very little of it. Though we had but three hundred yards to go she called frantically to a taxi-driver.

'Get in!' she ordered, in a voice hoarse with passion. As a matter of fact, she pushed me in with such vehemence that the vegetables spilt everywhere. The kids gave us a parting cheer as we moved off.

'We're going to get a servant again, to-morrow,' hissed Maria.

The victory was mine; but not so much mine. The next day the servant arrived.

It was Amelia.

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15: The Man Who Died

World's News (Sydney) 25 April 1934

FROM the look of him as he sat in the barge with the grey-green light of coming dawn beginning to make his ashen face visible through the dense darkness, Arthur Chapman was already dead. He was dead with fear of the ordeal ahead of him; his face, with its sagged jaw and terror-stricken eyes, being something fearful to look at.

There was a wonderful spirit in the men. around him, some of them laughing (although the laughter may have been forced) in the face of the ordeal that was to come, all trying to maintain an appearance of indifference, or even eagerness. Except Chapman. His face was white and his convulsive grip on the side of the barge made his hand show white, too. It was agony to him.

What was most piteous about it was that Chapman was fighting, although he may not have known it, for all that he valued, probably. And he was going to be a loser. There was nothing in him to make him anything else.

I had heard his name mentioned on a tram in Sydney.

"Now Arthur Chapman's gone, forget it, Mary." It was an elderly woman speaking, in contempt, "it would be best for you— and the children, too— if he never came back. He's a squib."

"He enlisted; he had pluck enough for that," retorted the younger woman defensively.

"Enlisted! Of course, he enlisted for a job."

"Well, he did that, for me and the kiddies! If he's not a fighting man, that's all the more to his credit. Risking being shot."

"He won't be shot-unless they shoot him for running away," returned the elder woman, maliciously.

It seemed to be a case of a wife wishing to be loyal but unstimulated by any admiration for the object of the loyalty and subjected incessantly to the undermining influence of a mother who hated her husband. When, in Egypt, I heard the name of "Arthur Chapman" called, the conversation on the tram flashed back into my mind, although previously forgotten.

He was known as a "squib"-sometimes the squib. And yet he was not disliked; although his manhood was a thing for contempt, he was likeable enough, with an earnest desire to please everybody. The impatience of the stout mother'-in-law for such a weakling— the weakling qualities seeming to be emphasised by his physical strength— could be understood; so could his wife's desire to find, and difficulty in finding, apologies for him.

It was pathetic to see his face when the rumor that had reached us of a real plunge into the war became a certainty translated into rapid movements. There was an intensity of terror upon it.

The general expectation was that Chapman would find some way of "squibbing it"; perhaps he lacked the enterprise and resolution either to break away to avoid embarkation or to find some method of "swinging the lead" by going sick. It was a whimper that revealed him amongst the shadows lined up on the dark deck of the transport, waiting to scramble down into the boats and barges. He was praying for ease far the terror that was in his heart, his prayer like the whimper of a frightened child. "

it was a surprise that he should be there; his pent-up terror was a thing that must burst forth some time, leaving him a mere pitiable wreck. He had liked to talk about his wife and children; they were his life, his whole hope of the future. Remembering that, and the fight his wife was making to keep her loyalty for him, it was impossible not to pity him.

The grey light came, and the cliffs that loomed darkly ahead broke into sharp rattles of noise; there, was the whine of bullets in the air and the hiss they made as they hit the water, like hail falling into pools. Above the medley of new sound, it seemed that the whimpering intake of Arthur Chapman's breath was plain.

Then we are scrambling ashore, hastily forcing, under sharp orders, into line; there was no doubt that we were in the war, now. There was the scream of shells overhead, the boom of explosions, the tearing sound of shrapnel bursts; a curious order, too, in a nightmare confusion. It seemed strange to find that Arthur Chapman was still there.

But he crumpled suddenly on the sands, his arms. thrown up before his face. "They've got me! I'm done for!" he cried, as he fell.

Taylor and Johnson turned to lift him, but we were moving now— forward and up. Chapman was forgotten.

There was so much magnificent courage then that it was impossible to be a coward; the courage of mere boys hitherto called upon to face nothing but mere sporting adventure mingled with the gritty determination of those who were unused to facing any hardship, any danger, without complaint; with all, there was no alternative to the thought that to advance was the duty, and, whatever happened, whoever fell, the advance must be made. In the face of the steel hail that poured down to meet them they went up and up, indomitably. Men fell grasping at -tufts of bush or rocks, rolled a little, and lay sprawled on the hillside; the others grimly went on.

Amazingly the steep ascent was won. An officer dropped where he stood, marshalling the men who had reached him for the rush of an assault; and then we were amongst flying Turks who could not stay to face, in hand-to-hand conflict, the supermen who had dared, and won through, that climb in the face of death. The advance was savage. here; there was the thought of fallen mates to make it so. And again a climb, and a new crest won, the resistance, more strenuous, crumpling under a hand-to-hand attack.

And here was Arthur Chapman again! A different Chapman. He seemed to have shed his fear. Nash had two Turks before him, and he was off his guard with their bayonets coming at him. Suddenly Chapman dashed between them, lunging right and left.

"Thanks, Chappie," gasped Nash. "You saved me."

Chapman flashed a cheerful smile upon him.

"I'm dead," he said. ''They got me on the beach. But I'm still carrying on with the boys. Nothing can harm me now; I'm dead."

It sounded like a queer joke; but during the next few days it became known that Arthur Chapman really believed that he had been killed on the beach, and it was merely the spirit of him that was carrying on amongst us. It made an immense difference, for, as he could not be hurt any more, he had no need for fear.

We had made our footing on the Peninsula; flushed by the knowledge that an achievement regarded as almost impossible had been accomplished, we looked for new triumphs, a cheerful spirit prevailing. Our supremacy In conflict had been established.

The first reception of Chapman's delusion was derisive. Chapman had decided to simulate madness to get away; but the way Chapman carried on dissipated that idea, creating puzzlement and a little awe. Chapman became a natural subject of discussion in the dugouts.

Into one of these discussions he dropped one night.

"The beggar really thinks he is dead," Taylor had been, saying. "Seems to have been on his mind that it was coming; something hit him on the beach; it may have been a stone kicked up by a bullet. I forced him on to his feet again, and he came on; but as we went up he said to me: 'Do I seem real to you, Jim? You know, I'm dead! It's funny being able to go on like this.' "

"He goes on now as if he doesn't care for anything— and we used to call him a squib!" said Johnson. "Last night he volunteered for the raiding party when those three prisoners were brought in. You should see Sergeant McCoy look pop-eyed when he did it!"

And just at that moment Chapman came in from the hillside in which the dugout was fashioned. His entry was ghostly enough; and a strained silence fell on us.

"I wanted to ask you chaps something," he said. "I don't mind what has happened to me. I was frightened that it would be worse-that I couldn't stand up to it. The news will go back to my missus that I was killed in action; she and the kids'll be proud of me. But I'd like her to hear that I've been carrying on since-the queer thing about the way I've been able to do that. I want you to let her know about that "

"Why not write to her yourself?" Taylor demanded.

"I'm doing that, of course." He gave a little laugh. "My letters may not reach her. I may only be dreaming that I am writing them. A dead man can't write letters— not real letters."

Nominally a storm of banter would have fallen upon him; but its failure before this to shake his conviction had produced a strange feeling.

"I'm real enough to you fellows, aren't I?" demanded Chapman.

"Of course you're real enough!" asserted Johnson, gruffly.

"Well, I want my missus to know," he said. "Of course this may all be a death dream-that you are here, and that I'm talking to you; but still, it it's possible, I want her to know."

It was almost possible to think into Chapman's mind, with its queer impression of being dead, but carrying on amongst the living; doing so gave us a feeling of the supernatural which gripped us with a sort of awe. The chaffing dropped; we were content to let Chapman think what he liked about himself." There were those who said that he was a sick man and should be sent out of the line; but, except for a sub-normal absence of fear in one who had been particularly timid, he appeared normal in every respect. A useful man who, because of the delusion that he was beyond hurt, was a willing volunteer for difficult and dangerous work.

How long was it likely to last? The doubt in such a question created a fear. His old nature might reassert itself in some critical moment, and bring disaster upon those who were with him— when he was out with a patrol, for example.

In the meantime the news that he was giving good service on the Peninsula would certainly get back to the wife, who needed some cause for admiration of him to strengthen her loyalty. Men were falling daily; and if Chapman, as seemed inevitable with the risks he took, should become one of them, he would go back to his home a hero— one who, if in the future he was nervy and timorous, was to be honored for it as a legacy of his service, nursed and shielded.

Then came the morning when the two snipers who went out from the post to which Chapman was attached failed to return. When anxiety for them started to became acute with the first signs that the mists of. night, which was a cover for their retreat, were dispersing, it was Chapman "who volunteered to go. out as a scout to see what had happened.

"You'll have to be lively," said Lieutenant Travers. "If Johnny Turk gets a sight of you, It's good night."

"All their' bullets can't hurt me," said Chapman, quietly.

He went out easily, without caution, and strode away into the mists. We watched his figure becoming merely a dark blur in it; then it was swallowed entirely. A few nervy shots rang out while we waited, almost breathlessly, for the result of his excursion. It was not far to the snipers' posts; caution usually extended the time of the journey; but if Chapman covered the distance at the rate at which he had started he should be back very soon.

We cursed the rapid approach of dawn as we waited, all tense. At times we thought he must have failed, had probably been caught by one of those nervy shots; but a formless darkness moving towards the post revealed itself as Chapman. Over his shoulders he was carrying the form of Carter. He was panting and distressed as he lowered the moaning Carter into ready hands.

"Both caught on their post; badly wounded," he panted. "I'm going back for Royle."

"Stop a minute, Chapman," Lieutenant Travers called; but Chapman was on his way. The night mists were no longer dark, but a grey fog had drifted up. Whether it was thick enough for a screen was a question.

An increase in the desultory firing suggested that it was not. Chapman had either been seen, or his movements had been heard. The Turks owned some accurate riflemen, and the distance of the target was not great.

Just when hope was being given up, Chapman reappeared again; he was supporting Royle, a heavy man, who could only limp.

An increase of rifle cracks showed that, even if they were not seen, their presence was known. Their progress, with only a few yards to cover, was painfully slow. It was strange to remember how Chapman had whimpered at the sound of bullets, seeing how steadily he carried along the man who handicapped him, coolly ignoring the messengers of death that must have hissed perilously close to him.

It was partly to put an end to the tension that a party leapt out to carry Royce in safely. But Chapman, who was the last in, was indifferent.

"The bullets could not hurt me," he said.

The rumor, later, that a D.C.M. was coming to Chapman seemed a matter of indifference; he told Taylor that it was all part of a dream. "If it was real, and my wife could hear about it, it would be something," he said.

We were leaving to harass the Turks with bombs-crude, trench-made things, sometimes only a measure of explosives, with metal slugs, in a jam-tin, but very effective weapons; and, the Turk was not slow in learning to retaliate either. The bomb that fell into the post one night had been hurled evidently by an enemy who had crept close and had only been observed as he raised to hurl his missile. The challenge of the sentry and his shot sounded at the same time as the bomb. arrived.

The explosion was startling; but there was more noise than damage. The only man hurt was Chapman; and the result was amazing. His scream was a thing of fearsome terror. His face was covered with blood, although the wound, apparently, was not a serious one.

"My God! I am wounded! I am not dead, then; I am alive!"

He was trembling as if with palsy; and he seemed to shrink and shrivel. With a whimper he thrust aside those who. had gathered around him and, in frantic fear, ran along the trench and disappeared along the communication, sap.

He was found, collapsed on the beach, a mass of quivering terror, and was carried to the doctor.

"What has this man been doing in the line? He's totally unfit; a mass of nerves," said the M.O., as he proceeded to mark the papers which sent Chapman on the road to Australia.

But it was a return of honor for Arthur Chapman, D.C.M, instead of the one of shame that would have been his but for a miracle— the miracle wrought by an excess of terror and the anticipation of death upon his imagination. He was to be met by a wife who was proud of him, proud to care for him, and felt a triumph in his gratification.

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16: The Eagle

Sun (Sydney) 4 Aug 1935

LOOKING up and out of my window in a pause in my writing, I saw it— a dark blot, on the clear sky over the distant purple range. It seemed framed exactly in the centre of the window, and something In the unusual size of the flying thing, monstrous even at a distance, held my gaze. Although its flight appeared leisurely, its speed must have been great, for soon it was plain enough for me to see the sweeping of its wings. By this time, fascinated. I was standing by the window to keep a clearer view, as, in its approach. it rose more directly overhead.

Some admiration for the superb strength of the great bird's flight held me. Combined with it, however, was a feeling of foreboding. I have a habit of "thinking-in" to the possible feelings of other living things; and something of the frenzied terror of small animals and birds to which that shadow overhead would be ominous occurred to me. It was almost as though I were one of those small creatures myself; yet there was a fascinated thrill with it, too. A spell was broken when the great bird, leaving a trail of faint sound, beating of wings, passed out of sight overhead.

I returned to my table and the labor of love with which I had been occupied. It was a letter to my brother, somewhere up above the Persian Gulf, where the spirit of adventure had taken him and he had found worth-while work to do. Strongly the thought came into my mind that my brother was like that eagle: Strong, courageous, predatory, and in a way pitiably lonely. Different as were our natures, there had been a remarkably strong attachment between us from earliest infancy, and these letters between us, a continuous correspondence, were its abiding sign. The reflection that the interchange meant more to my strong, adventuring brother than to myself, gave me a kind of pathetic amusement at times. All his life my brother, at the back of his wild defiance's of dangers, had an almost passionate desire for affection, especially my affection. In our childhood, when never a day passed without an exploit on his part that made me angry with a sense of shame, since I dared not follow where he would lead, he would leave his bed and clamber into mine, to sleep with his arm lying over me. It was a remembrance of such things that impelled me to keep up my letters to him. a poignant feeling for the loneliness of the eagle spirit, a sense that my letters to him answered much the same purpose as my company beside him did In the days of our infancy.

His letters were more interesting than mine, which could convey only such humdrum news that may be gathered by a man working in an ordered city and living in one of its outer suburbs. His teemed with incident and adventure, references to places the very mention of which conjured up visions of romance. Work as an engineer had taken him to Afghanistan, first of all; he had found a hazardous usefulness in the war, which continued, after peace was declared elsewhere, in the constant conflict against Bolshevist agencies steadily pushing their way down amongst the peoples of Asia.

Being in the Secret Service now, his confidences were full of reticences and his descriptions of his own part in adventures sketchy; but my knowledge of his old daring helped me to understand a lot. The letter I had before me told how he had managed to find a way into a secret meeting arranged by Bolshevist agents and, practically unarmed, had held up the leaders and turned them over to the native authorities. He held that the greatest part of the success was in the humiliation he had inflicted, and it was his avid enjoyment of this phase of the adventure that made him tell of it with more detail than usual.

A swish of passing wings had me on my feet again. With a bound I was at the window. The eagle was sailing majestically around in circles of no great altitude, as if surveying the surrounding district, its head turning to left and right as It passed. To follow it In its circling flight I leaned head and shoulders out of the window. It came round with a sweep: and then it seemed to me that it swooped in my direction. Hurriedly I withdrew myself from the window, half closing it as I left it. An uncanny sensation that I was one of those small creatures that might be the bird's natural prey, made me feel an actual fear, a fear of which I was so ashamed that I sat down again at the table, assuring myself that there was something better to be done than watching a bird, however magnificent.

The light in the room was suddenly blotted, a flutter of wings falling on my ears, even as the shadow seemed to fall on my heart. As I leaped to my feet my chair was upset behind me. The bird, monstrous in size at such proximity, was framed in the window, its wings partly spread, and fluttering to maintain the scrambling hold of its talons on the window-sill.

My heart pattered as I stared at my strange  visitor. The thing frightened me as much by the strangeness of its arrival there, as by the terrifying strength it represented; most of all by the murderous strength that appeared in the cruel-looking beak. Yet there was no fury in its aspect; it twisted its head from side to side, as if inspecting me. When I could recover sense enough to do so, I yelled, to frighten it away. It remained unmoved. For a moment I calculated what harm that beak, suddenly thrust through .the window glass, could do to me; then, deciding that I could dodge it if the bird made an attack, I approached. The bird gave no hostile signs. I shut the window full down, and retreated quickly.

Uncannily, the bird stayed where he was, scrambling for its perch. Its presence awed me. Apparently I could not drive it away. I left the room, shutting the door after me. It is hard to describe the feeling of terror that had come over me. I heard a swish of wings, as if the bird had deserted its perch, yet I felt a reluctance to go back and see whether it had really gone, or to go into any room where a window might expose me to its sight again, I stood in the hall, listening. There was a curious shuffling at the door, against which something bumped several times; then a rustling of wings, and a fluttering at one or other of the windows. The encircling of the house by the bird, as if seeking an entrance, was weird. I felt like a man besieged by something supernatural.

A sharp report rang out just as the sound of rustling wings came again from the direction of the window of my smoke room, in which I do my writing; with it was the sound as of pebbles thrown sharply against the wall, a sharp, hoarse scream, and a sudden heavy beat of wings.

With a quick forgetfulness of my fears, I rushed into the room again. The bird had gone. I saw it soaring rapidly upwards, but there were little drops of blood on the window-sill. Several neighbors were clustered in my front garden as I went out.

The eagle, high up in the air now, circled around, unwilling to leave; but when that mean little runt Barnes again lifted his shotgun and fired upwards, it made off with powerful sweeps. Relieved as I was at the bird's disappearance, I felt a vague anger in the thought that a man like Barnes, with a lust for killing that is often associated with mean little men, should have held the whip of superior weapons over the noble bird. Rabbits seemed more Barnes's height.

We discussed the singular conduct of the eagle and its magnificent proportions for some time, and then, feeling glad that my wife and family, who would have been badly scared, were away, I shuttered the windows, locked the house, and went away at his invitation to dine with a neighbor, Targett, glad to shake off in company the eerie memories of what had happened. It was whilst, we were dining that an exclamation from one of the children, who was facing the window, sent us pell-mell on to the verandah.

Targett's house, although at a good distance, overlooked my own, and we could plainly see the giant bird, fluttering around the walls like a moth against the flame of a candle, visiting each of the shuttered windows in turn.

"What a curious thing!" exclaimed Mrs. Targett. "Why should it hover round your house in particular, Mr. Matthews?"

"I don't know. It gives me an uncanny feeling," I said. "Of course, the only explanation is that the eagle is a tame one— possibly a pet at some time. There are people who have some queer pets; and seeing me looking out as it soared round,, it may have fancied some resemblance to a lost master. Did anyone who previously lived in my house go in for keeping eagles?"

The Targetts, who had lived in the district longer than I, could remember no such keeper of pets, but this explanation of the weird visit remained in my mind as the only logical one. That sympathy for a lost pet, or one driven away from its home, which, I suppose, we are all inclined to feel, struck me in regard to the eagle, which I remembered had had for me the friendly aspect, in spite of the natural ferocity of its appearance, which a pet shows for the master he knows.

But I was glad to see it fly away as the dusk fell quickly. Androcles's lion may have been all very well to Androcles, but it would have scared the life out of any other man it happened to mistake for its benefactor; and that was how I felt in regard to the eagle.

Although I laughed at the Targetts' invitation to stay the night, and at the revolver Targett offered me, my state of mind is indicated by the fact that, although I am a lover of wide-open windows, the shutters around my house remained closed that night.

I was glad of it when I woke in the morning to the sound of rustlings and scrapings against the shutters of my window and the adjacent walls, With heart pounding curiously, I lay still in bed as the noise passed from my window, but was renewed in other parts of the house. It was only when the sounds had ceased for some time that I had courage to leave my bed, and when I left the house I hurried away from the vicinity as quickly as I could go.

The newspapers had got the story of the strange visitor, and it was all over town. One result was the arrival of my friend Burns, with a business-like big-game rifle and a definite plan of going home with me that afternoon for the prospect of the sport he saw in killing the big bird. It would have been foolishness to refuse, yet I felt a strange reluctance. It seemed to me that I was betraying something that was placing confidence in me— something that, however much I feared it, was a friend.

All the same, Burns was there with his rifle that afternoon, when, after waiting tensely by my smoke room window, we saw the bird majestically approaching against the blue sky. There had been a conflict of emotion within me up to then, an inclination to tell Burns to take himself and his gun away; but a memory of the terror with which the bird had filled me returned, and I was glad he was there. Yet even as Burns lifted the rifle to his shoulder, an insane desire to grasp it from his hands was in me.

Burns has quite a reputation as a marksman at moving targets. It appeared to me that, simultaneously with the sharp report of the rifle, there was a splatter of feathers below the soaring bird, which seemed a check in its flight and then, with wings fluttering, topple earth-wards.

The sight made me sick, but I found myself beside Burns as we reached the gate.  The eagle had fallen some distance away in some scrub, and he was keen to secure it. I let him go, not caring to go with him; and I remembered that I had not inspected my letter-box.

There was a letter in it. My brother was dead.

"The official papers and medals you will find in the postal packet which goes separately from this letter explains how much your brother, who gave his life in the service of the Empire, was valued by the authorities, as well as by those who were his brothers in the service," the letter ran. "Included also in the packet are your letters to him, which he desired should be returned to you in the event of his death. It is fine to think that such affection between brothers as that in which he held you... Did your brother tell you that he learned to believe the doctrine, of the transmigration of souls? If there is any truth in that, your brother's soul will inhabit an eagle. It was as the 'Eagle' that we knew him."

WE HAD BEEN talking about uncanny things; that was Matthews's contribution. Dawson now weighed in:—

"Normal men like everything about them to be normal," he said. "If there is such a thing as a spiritual survival it is only a very foolish spirit who will make mortal survivors uncomfortable through any feeling that it is necessary to continue a companionship after death. I knew a man named Braund, between whom and his wife there existed an unusual warm love. They agreed that if either should die, he or she would return to the other in the spirit form, if it were possible.

"Braund's wife died, and Braund's house became known as being haunted. Braund swore that he had spoken to his dead wife; servants declined to stay in the place and friends kept away. Braund moved to a new house. The old one was burnt down. I believe Braund himself started the fire."

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17: Babes, Bears, Birthdays and Burglars

Sydney Mail 16 Oct 1935

RECENTLY, at a gathering of one of Maria's pet concerns, a lecturer had the courage to talk about 'Courage.' He was a lecturer who spoke very nicely; all the same, I am still not able to explain what courage is. But most distinctly it was not what I felt when the muzzle of that revolver pressed into my side.

'Do you want your lights blown out?' hoarsely whispered a voice that, in a very definite way, was associated with the revolver.

It was a startling situation which would have been alarming without the revolver. Within a few yards, the house was blazing with lights and the sound, of merriment could be distinctly heard; because of the merriment I was as far from help, even if I had cared to take the risk of lifting up my voice, as if I had been miles away.

Maria, in one of her thoughtful moments, had had a workshop built for me at the back of the house, feeling, no doubt, that times might come when I would like to work. It had been upon a plan to assist the merriment that I had retired to this stoutly built little building, when, unexpectedly, the door opened and two shadowy figures— and the revolver— came into the picture.

I hastened to say that I did not want my lights blown out; it sounded very unpleasant. 'Right-oh! Give us them togs. Now you'll stay in there, an' if you make a sound you'll get a bullet through you. Mind that!'

The door closed. The key turned in the lock. I was left in the darkness of the workshop, clad only in my shirt and feeling very astonished and alarmed, not to say mortified, with a wild wonder about what was going to happen. My own idea had been that a baby does not need a birthday— not a public one, anyhow.

But since Mary's child, with Mary and her husband, had become part of our household, Maria appeared to want the world to know that we had as many babies as other people. Or at least one. So little Mary had to have her birthday party, even if, shortly after she had seen the one candle on her cake blown out, she had to go off to bed and leave it to others to enjoy it. It was Maria, proud of her little bit of swank, who would enjoy the party most.

Perhaps Maria's desire to show-off had a side to it which wasn't altogether little Mary. I had myself developed— to her— unknown qualities since our house began to be invaded by little visitors. With a bearskin rug drawn over me, I imagined that I was giving a fair representation of a bear for the amusement of the children until little Lucy implored me to 'go on playing elephants.' Perhaps the children's observations of natural history were truer than mine. They knew that, whatever its skin, it was the 'elephant' that gave rides to little children. Bear or elephant, I was a great success. Children were told when a visit to our home was in prospect. 'Uncle Herbert will be there— won't he, Mrs. Porndecket?' And they clapped their hands.

Maria may be snappy with me at times, but there is no doubt she was pleased at my success. Under her stimulus my animal impersonations, crude in their beginnings, became more intricate. Completely clad in a bearskin, with head complete, I was finally to be one of the great features of little Mary's party.

In order that my appearance should be a complete surprise, I had retired to my workshop to remove the clothes that would make me too hot and encase myself in my bearskin. It was at that moment that the burglars arrived. When they left me, locked in my workshop, my bearskin as well as my normal outer covering went with them.

I was astounded. It seemed remarkable that burglars should choose for their operations a house where a party was in full swing. Obviously, however, two men, one with a revolver, had not come merely for the sake of relieving me of my clothes and a bearskin. An intimate knowledge of the arrangements Maria and I had discussed gave me a sinking feeling in the heart.

A perfect shriek of merriment came from the house; it continued in a riot, punctuated by individual childish squeals of delight and surprise, and a woman's high-pitched exclamation which I heard distinctly.

'Fancy Herbert being able to do that!' was the remark. Whilst my voice, from outside, would have been ineffective against the noise within, it was quite easy for me to hear the sounds coining out. What I heard confirmed that feeling in my heart. An indignation seized me that caused me to pommel against the door which locked me in, forgetful of the revolver that had been thrust into my side or the threat uttered by the man who held it. A sense of base ingratitude may stir anger in the mildest of men.

Obviously Susan had betrayed us— me especially; me, who had befriended her. She had been with the Prossers for a long time; as a visitor I had grown used to seeing her and nodding to her, and when I met her, one day, with a suitcase in her hand and tears upon her face I paused to ask her what was the trouble. She told me, rather volubly, with freshly bubbling tears.

Her father had got himself into trouble. He wasn't a bad man, she sobbed; he was only weak. She had tried to keep him straight; he was fond of her, and she had a lot of influence with him. But some of his companions had involved him in some trouble. She had had to spend all the little money she had to try to get him out of it. He. had gone to gaol, but only for a short sentence, the Judge esteeming that he was a tool of other men. And then the Prossers, refusing to have a daughter of a gaolbird in the house, had discharged her— when she was penniless.

Her story and her tears appealed to me. I advised her to see Mrs. Porndecket; there happened to be a vacancy in our household, and at least Maria would enjoy being indignant with the Prossers. She was not to mention that I had advised her; but I was in the offing when she arrived, to join Maria in her indignation.

She knew Susan (her first name was Nada, but Maria refused to countenance that) as a good and pleasant servant, and Susan was engaged.

And now there was this. Susan's father was some sort of minor theatrical, a circus tumbler or acrobat; he could do much better in the bearskin than I could ever hope to do. The screams of merriment from the house showed that he was doing it. And while he was holding the attention his confederates or confederate would be looting.

A flash of revelation had come to me. Owing to the numerous robberies in the district, many people had developed the habit of taking their most prized portable treasures with them when they went out. To burgle a house where a party was in progress was actually the very thing that looters who had got to know the situation would do. The knowledge of the situation of these looters appeared very complete— too complete for my faith in human nature.

Of course, I did not know what happened, exactly, until afterwards. Maria had passed the whisper to her adult guests that, for the delight of the children, Herbert was going to appear as a bear, and what he would do would surprise them.

But even Maria was surprised when the human bear rolled into the room with a double tumble and then stood on his head. It was that that roused the great shriek of merriment that reached me in my shed. Maria was intensely gratified at the applause. After all, she owned me. No other woman in the room had a husband who could entertain the children like this.

'Be careful, Herbert,' she whispered, after what she supposed to be me, to her increasing amazement, had done a couple of handsprings. She was convinced that I had secretly gone into training for the occasion. 'You might hurt yourself.'

The bear merely growled and snapped at her in a realistic fashion which brought new yells of joy from the children. Then, leaping up the wall, it hung itself from a cornice.

'Fancy Herbert being able to do that!' exclaimed Mrs. Martin in her high-pitched voice.

I could find it very difficult to fancy it myself. The supposed Herbert went on occasioning astonishment, riveting the attention of everybody gathered in the house. It might have struck him that he was rather overdoing the thing. It should have struck many of the onlookers that, really, Herbert Porndecket, slightly paunchy and slow of movement, and addicted to no more violent exercise than a slow saunter around the golf links, could not possibly do all these athletic feats. But the acrobat was an artist in his way, and was carried away by the applause, and he went on building up a new reputation for me. Who, in the meantime, was banging lustily but rather hopelessly against the locked door of the workshop.

It surprised me to hear a sobbing voice on the other side...

'Oh, Mr. Porndecket, I am so sorry! I didn't know anything about it until I saw the antics of that bear. Then I knew it couldn't be you and it must be him. So I came to look what had happened to you. Oh, Mr. Porndecket, I didn't know— really, truly, I didn't! I just told my father about the party and what was going to happen—'

A great relief came to me; I did not like the idea of thinking that Susan was a traitress. But there was no time to think of that.

'Let me out, Susan,' I said.

'There's no key, Mr. Porndecket,' she said, tears still in her voice. 'Oh, Mr. Porndecket, I hope you won't think too bad of my father. He's weak—'

'There's a duplicate on the ring in the kitchen. Run along and get it, there's a good girl.'

In a little while the door was open. Susan stood outside, making rather frantic excuses for her father.

'My good girl,' I said, 'we'll talk about that later. I haven't any trousers—'

I intended to ask her to get me a pair, but a strange thing is maiden modesty. Susan gave a scream and fled; and after waiting a little while in the hope that she would sense the request that I had been about to make, I decided that it was useless to wait for her to bring me covering for my nether extremities.

The situation was desperate. Outlaws were robbing my wife's guests and ourselves, and when everything came out I could see Maria, placing on my shoulders the whole blame of bringing Susan into the house. Maria had a flair for doing that sort of thing; and she would be additionally incensed by the triumph of the Prossers, who had discharged Susan and could now say that they were wise.

I crept around the house. I did not feel capable, especially in a trouserless condition, of meeting desperadoes, one of them with a revolver, unaided. The telephone was near the front door; perhaps, with the entertainment riveting the attention. I could reach it without being seen and could call the police.

I reached it all right; there was no one about to be shocked at my pantless state. My fingers went to the dial.

Unfortunately our telephone is a noisy one. I had hardly started to dial before a door opened, letting out, from the dual rooms that held the merry party, a burst of sound. From the room waddled a bear, to turn and growl with most ferocious realism at apparent followers. Then he moved quickly towards the back door.

I did not feel inclined to run after and tackle him. It was a job for the police. I continued with my ringing.

'Ah, there's the telephone! I wonder why Susan does not answer it?' I heard Maria's voice say, above the babble of sound.

'It may be for me, Mrs. Porndecket,' another voice said. 'I asked for a ring to be sent on to me in case my mother was any worse.'

There was a movement which told me that some of Maria's women friends were coming into the hall. It was impossible to face them without trousers, in spite of the urgency of my call.

Incontinently I fled.

Feminine screams informed me that my bare legs and flying shirt-tails had been glimpsed. I fled wildly, with the panic that comes to the trouserless male endeavouring to avoid observation. Around the corner of the house I went, and, too late to check myself, I saw a man dropping to the ground from one of the windows. I ran right into him as he landed; in the collision both of us sprawled in a heap.

I dare say, as I was the moving force, he was more hurt than I was. In an attack the element of surprise is everything; and perhaps my flapping shirt-tails had an effect. The man picked himself hurriedly from the ground, and, instead of attacking me as I expected, he gave a quick exclamation and dashed away into the darkness.

At my feet, as I rose, I saw a pile of goods— purses, attaché cases, furs and fur coats— that evidently had been dropped from the window; the loot of my wife's guests. Quite accidentally I had saved the robbery; but more precious than all the rest to me, at that particular moment, were my trousers, which, with the coat and waistcoat, lay alongside the pile.

I was pursuing no man— even if I had felt inclined to pursue — without trousers; but with my pants on again I was valiant.  There was the chance still of catching Susan's renegade father, and, through him, perhaps securing the arrest of his companion. He would' be at the back of the house somewhere still. The man who had fled had conveyed no warning to him.

Voices arrested me at the corner. 'You promised me that you would go straight!' said Susan's tearful, indignant voice. 'I've stuck to you, Dad; but now you've helped to rob good, kind Mr. Porndecket.'

'I was fooled in it, Nada,' said the weak, excusing voice. 'I didn't mean anything when I told Price about this party and what the boss was going to do. But the scheme came to him, and he threatened me—'

I saw him standing there, still in the bearskin, but with the head removed.

'You had no right to agree. You promised! You promised!' cried poor Susan, heartbrokenly.

'Hallo, there!' I said and slipped before them, endeavouring to make my voice as stern as possible. 'Oh, Mr. Porndecket! Can you let him off?' Susan pleaded. 'He's my father. He's weak, but he says he was fooled.'

A sudden clamour was rising in the house. The air seemed to vibrate with exclamations of anguish. The robbery had been discovered.

'Mr. Porndecket,' pleaded Susan, 'is it possible to let him go? He has promised me that he won't do anything like this again if he is given another chance.'

'My word!' said her father solemnly. I suspect that he had been thinking for quite a while of the effect that would have.

'Oh, please, Mr. Porndecket!' pleaded Susan.

Well, all of us, although perhaps in less criminal ways, can do with a second chance. And I remembered 'good kind Mr. Porndecket.' I was sorry for poor Susan and her struggle to keep her father straight; I was sorry, for her sake, for the weakling who took such a lot of keeping straight. After all, he had not been the master criminal who had thrust a revolver into my ribs.

I did not pause to guess at how many second chances he had been given. And I saw a way of getting out of considerable unpleasantness that might come to myself.

'I am going to give you your chance,' I said sternly. 'Slip off that bearskin and go for your life.'

I LEAVE you to imagine what sort of a hero I was when I strode into that tribulation-stricken house with an armful of the spoil the burglar had abandoned— the rest was soon collected— and my story of how I had come upon the man who was getting away with our guests' belongings.

Not often have domestic adventures turned out so well for me. I was not only a perfect wonder at playing bears, but a hero in tackling burglars. For the first time in her life Maria is really proud of me, and shows it— rather embarrassingly at times. Also rather embarrassing is the children's desire for me to live up to my reputation as a performing bear.

'Uncle Herbert hurt his back,' says Maria; I did, in fact, as I found by next day's soreness, sustain some hurt from my collision with the burglar. 'The doctor won't let him do those tricks any more.'

The whole district, too, although our robbery was not mentioned in the case, gives me some credit for the apprehension, for a series of robberies, of a man named Price, who was arrested by the police next day.

My greatest satisfaction,, however, is in the grateful looks of the now happy Susan and the satisfaction that her father, for whom I found a job, is going straight.

One reason, possibly, is that Price is doing what Susan tells me is called a 'Kathleen Mavourneen,' sentenced as a habitual criminal. For the sake of Susan and her weak father, I hope the 'It may be for years and it may be for ever' phrase bears the emphasis on the 'for' ever.'

________________

18: The Proud Name of Fennessy

Sydney Mail  24 Feb 1937

ROBERT JAMES FENNESSY— it's as good a name as the 'Loo has known. It was the name of a man everybody was proud to meet and call a friend. The old woman in the shop spoke proudly and with spirit. It was a name I had been looking for, without clearly remembering the 'Robert J.'

As I remembered him, Fennessy had been a carrier, and I wanted a carrier. I had long left the 'Loo; and the house which used to sport the carrier's sign had disappeared, replaced by a small factory building.

Naturally, it had been a lot to expect to find Fennessy at the old address, after twelve years in a land of change. I resolved to get a city firm to do what I wanted done, and then the sign above the little corner shop caught my eye. It intimated to all the world that Mrs. Robert James Fennessy was a registered milk vendor.

It was queer to see a sign like that— 'Mary Fennessy' would have been more usual. With the idea of still finding my carrier, I entered.

The effects of war service, it appeared, had taken Fennessy. That is what the bright-faced, elderly lady inside the little shop, with its rutted old counter and strangely assorted shelves, told me.

I was sorry.

'It was his father established the business about the time I married him,' the old lady said confidentially, accepting me as a sort of family friend on account of the dead soldier. 'For forty-five years the name of Fennessy has been respected in the 'Loo, but there was no one to keep on the carrying business when my son went. My grandson is going for a doctor. He won his scholarships, and he has a war bursary on account of his father.'

The old lady glanced affectionately towards the open door of the little sitting-room behind the shop, where I saw a tall, agreeable-looking young man sorting books on the table.

'When I took this shop I put the name over the door: Robert James Fennessy.'

It was pleasant to contemplate the old lady's pride, the affection with which the name that had been her husband's lingered on her tongue as if she was caressing every syllable of it; pleasant, also, to think of the strong tree of this house growing in the mostly sordid 'Loo, the representative of the new generation, 'going for a doctor.'

AS JUST a passing pleasantness, it might have ended there had I not thought the old lady's pride interesting enough to mention to Evans, a solicitor friend, as we had a drink together.

'Robert Fennessy?' he cogitated, as if he found something familiar in the name; then suddenly: 'By Jove! I'm glad you spoke about that! There's a Robert Fennessy concerned in an estate we have looked after; it affects a bit of Woolloomooloo property, too. We couldn't find him, or something— I forget the details, but I know that there's some sort of hold-up over the property. You might give me the address of the shop.'

That gave, momentarily, a fillip to my interest; but the whole incident was forgotten until one day I met Evans nosing about the 'Loo.

'I'm looking for that shop you mentioned to me,' he said. 'I want to speak to this Mrs. Fennessy.'

'We pass it as we walk along here,' I said. And I was curious. 'Is it a fact, as you thought, that the old woman is interested in some property?'

'Yes,' he said shortly; and he added, after a time: 'It's a queer thing— she doesn't seem to want it. The property is part of the Giles estate, left by old Alexander Giles to the old woman and her son. It's accumulated in value a good deal; but for some reason this Mrs. Fennessy refused to have anything to do with the devise. There was some correspondence, and there the matter seems to have finished. The position is that the whole business is tied up; we can't do anything with the property except collect the rents and keep the two houses in repair.'

SOMEHOW— it may have been curiosity on my part, but I think it was by Evans's wish— I found myself in the little shop again, introducing the solicitor. It had seemed to me that I must be the bearer of good news, but the smile that seemed habitual on the face of the old lady froze when the solicitor's name was mentioned.

'I wrote to you,' she said. 'I don't want anything to do with the property.'

'Is there some place where we can discuss the matter?' asked Evans.

She hesitated, and then motioned towards the sitting-room at the back. The pleasant young man was there, pleasanter at a closer view, stalwart, wholesome, and handsome; and with him was a young woman whose appearance showed an affluence contrasting rather considerably with the humble, if comfortable, surroundings.

'It's a matter of business I've got to discuss, dears,' the old woman said.

'We'll have to be getting along, anyhow. You have that appointment, Mary, haven't you?' said the young man.

The girl came forward and kissed the old lady.

'Oh, Mrs. Fennessy,' she cried, 'I am so glad Bob brought me along to see you! It makes us friends, doesn't it?— and I do so want to be friends with Bob's grandmother!'

'Bob's a fine boy,' said the old lady, 'and he bears an honourable name— the name that was his grandfather's. There's none better.'

It seemed to me that there was a defiant look at Evans as he stepped across to the girl.

'I know this young lady,' he said; 'or I used to. Miss Waters, isn't it?'

She gave a laughing recognition.

'Well, you two have to run away, haven't you?' said Mrs. Fennessy. 'You will see me again, Miss Waters?'

'Won't you call me May, Grandma? I'm going to call you what Bob does.' The young people went out boisterously.

'MISS WATERS is the daughter of a nephew of Alexander Giles; her grandmother was the sister,' remarked Evans, probably for my information.

'Mr. Evans,' said Mrs. Fennessy sharply, 'this property is nothing to me.'

'Isn't it a pity to view it in that light? It is worth a good deal of money,' Evans added.

'Money's not everything,' she retorted sharply. 'I don't want it.'

'There's the boy to be considered,' said Evans. 'He's going to be a doctor? A doctor needs some money to establish himself in a practice.'

'I can see to that,' said the little old woman defiantly, and to back her statement she snapped open a drawer and waved a bank pass-book for a moment in the air.

'He may want to marry a rich girl. Miss Waters, shall we say? She's wealthy. He'd be in a better position with some money,' Evans urged.

'It's good enough for anyone to marry a Fennessy,' she said almost fiercely.

'We have no interest in the matter but to get it settled,' said Evans. 'We're held up over the disposition of this property. If we can get a document renouncing the gift, it will enable us to go ahead; the property will be sold and the money will go to other beneficiaries.'

'Aren't my letters enough?' said Mrs. Fennessy.

'The young man has to be considered,' said Evans suavely. 'His prospects are concerned. You were given only a life interest, Mrs. Fennessy; the property afterwards was to go to your son, and the right now belongs to his son. We need to have his renunciation, too.'

'But why any renunciation?' I suggested. 'It should not be very difficult to accept property.'

'There is a condition; that is Mrs. Fennessy's objection,' said Evans quietly. 'But your grandson will have to be told of his rights. The estate must be settled, Mrs. Fennessy. Your repudiation can only apply to your life interest. We will be compelled to tell young Mr. Fennessy, madam.'

'He will renounce it, too,' she retorted, with some agitation.

There was a, little gust of shy laughter in the shop; for some reason the young couple had returned.

'You are afraid of asking him,' challenged Evans.

There was a strange look in the humble little woman as she drew herself up. She just breathed 'I'm not,' and then stepped towards the door and called, 'Bob!' 'And you too, May; you come. I've got something to say to Bob, and it concerns a family skeleton. It's just as well for you to know about it, too.'

THE old lady was excited, and yet grimly set in a purpose. She hardly noticed how May stole over to her and put her hand on hers.

'I'll have to explain it all, right from the start,' said Mrs. Fennessy. 'I was quite a young girl when I came down from the Hawkesbury to service. My people were well-to-do, in their way; my father owned a prosperous farm, but there were a great many of us. I went to the big house of the Gileses, and there was a coachman there— Robert Fennessy.

'I was only a young, flighty girl; but everybody liked Bob. He was handsome and upstanding; even the fashionable young ladies smiled at him. It flattered me that he should prefer me to everybody; but I had no intention of marrying for a long time, and I did not know that I would marry him even then.

'And then young Mr. Alexander Giles came back from England, where he had been finishing his education. He was the latest thing in London styles, and had side-whiskers that set the women of Sydney raving. The very first night he caught me on the verandah, whirled me into the shadows, and kissed me before I knew what was happening.

'I had been brought up well, and I slapped his face,' proceeded Mrs. Fennessy, oblivious of a certain humour in the remark; 'but perhaps I was flattered as much as angry. I avoided him; but, then, treating me as if I were a lady, he became so nice to me afterwards that I forgot to be frightened of him. He spoke to me at times as if some day we might be married, and I was only too glad to believe him.

'Because Robert became morose, always stormily demanding that I should marry him, Alexander seemed all the nicer. One night Robert came upon us down by the beach to which the grounds sloped, just when Alexander had caught me in his arms and was telling me how some day he would take me as his wife over the seas to see the glories of England. With a roar of rage Robert dashed up and, as Alexander released me from his arms, struck him full in the mouth.

'THEN they fought, Robert wild in his fury, until Alexander fell to the ground. As he staggered to rise I rushed in between them.

' "You thing!" I cried to Robert. "How dare you strike the man I love?"

'I said it to hurt him. It did; he looked at me in a dazed fashion.

' "It's because I love you and want you for my wife. That man has no intention of marrying you," he said.

' "That's a lie," said Alexander. "We're to be married within a week."

'Robert appeared to reel.

' "If that's the truth," he said, "I've nothing to say but that I'm sorry. Because I love Mary, the best I want is her happiness."

'He paused for a moment, and then blundered away; and I helped Alexander back towards the house, weeping for his poor bruised face. It was those bruises that made me love him more than I had ever done before.

' "Did you mean it," I whispered to him, "about our getting married?"

' "Every word," he said; "but I must arrange for a secret marriage, for my people cannot know until I am able to break it to them."

'I was satisfied with anything he arranged. He took me to Melbourne, but after a time we returned, and he found me a little house right out near Waverley. It was far out in those days. I was proud of the thought of being Mrs. Giles then, but so happy I hardly wanted the time to arrive when I would be received into society, although that was nice to dream about. Once or twice old Mr. Giles came out to our house, and I was glad, because it seemed to me that Alexander was breaking the news to his people.

'I met Robert on one occasion. He was out of his smart uniform and driving a cart, but he brought it to a standstill and jumped down to speak to me.

' "You are married?" he demanded.

' "Yes."

' "And you are happy?"

' "Yes," I said; "and you— why, what are you doing now?"

' "I have started a carrying business. This lackeying for rich people is no job for a man. But I'm glad to hear you are happy. It's the next best thing to having you myself.'

' "My husband will be glad to hear you are prospering," I said.

' "Glad!" he laughed harshly. "When he had me charged with assault, and I could not defend myself for fear of bringing you into it, but had to go to gaol for it! Him glad!"

'It shocked me to hear that that had happened, and shook my faith in Alexander; but when Robert found that I did not know he begged me not to speak of it, nor even to say that I had seen him, for fear of making trouble for myself. There were tears in his eyes as he shook hands, wishing that my happiness might continue.

'I did not expect to see him again. It amazed me one day to see him approaching our house, as I stood looking out from behind the window curtains in my bedroom. I went to my door and heard him talk to the maid.

' "Mr. Giles, senior, is here?" he said.

' "Yes, sir. You will be Mr. Fennessy? I was to show you right in to Mr. Giles.'

I COULD not make it out, having been told nothing.; and curiosity got the better of me after the door of Alexander's study had closed. The servant had passed back to her quarters. I tiptoed softly along the hallway and, half kneeling, looked through the keyhole. I could see old Mr. Giles sitting at a table, with his son standing, nervous and pale, behind him, and in front stood Robert, tensely upright and startled.

' "It is no question of casting the lady aside. My son is very fond of her, and I had difficulty in persuading him to take this step. But, to be plain, it is absolutely necessary for my son to make a rich marriage. The lady he is to marry is waiting, but naturally this— er— affair must end. My son was fearful of the lady's future; and I recalled that you were fond of her, and might be prepared to marry?'

' "But she is his wife!" Robert burst in. "He said he would marry her— she told me she was married. She is known as Mrs. Giles!'

' "We like to do things nicely, of course," said Mr. Giles. "Put the idea that there is a marriage out of your -head. The point is, that if you are prepared to marry the lady— who, allow me to say, from my personal experience, is a very fine and good woman in every way— we are prepared to offer you very substantial considerations— enough money to make a smart young man like you well-established in life.'

' "Hold there!" cried Robert hotly. "I love Mary; I am sorry for this dirty thing you have done to her. But I'll take no man's cast-offs, and your money's an insult. If I have been a coachman, the Fennessys are proud people. You can take your filthy offer elsewhere."

'My head had been reeling, my heart bursting; I could not understand the position, but, unable to bear any more of this talk, I burst in upon them.

' "Oh, Alexander, I am your wife!" I appealed to him, but he only turned away; and a feeling that some madness had fallen upon me came as I saw him do it. I turned frantically to Mr. Giles. "Oh, sir, I am his wife; we were truly married."

' "You were married?" queried Mr. Giles, looking sideways at his son.

' "On the boat going to Melbourne. An officer came down to our cabin and married us according to the Scotch law! Alexander told me that was legal!" I sobbed.

' My God!' cried Robert. His hands were clenched, and I thought he would leap over the table at Alexander; but Mr. Giles rose with hand extended to motion him back, and turned scathingly to his son.

' "A filthy trick, Alexander," he said. "By gad, I'm half inclined to say you'll have to marry her, in very truth. But marrying her to a penniless bla'guard won't do her any good— and that's what you'll be if there is no money forthcoming to help through this crisis. But it's a filthy trick— monstrous!"

' "But, father, listen! I thought—" Alexander began.

' "You thought! You knew the Scotch custom has no legal force here!"

'Up to then I had been numbed, still striving to believe desperately that the marriage was lawful.

' "Oh, Alexander," I cried desperately. "Then the child— the child when it is born, will have no father, unless—"

' "Then there is a child coming, too!" exclaimed Mr. Giles; and his look at his son was withering.

' "Unless?" I stammered. I found it impossible to speak the desperate hope— that he might marry me, even now, and make everything right; for the hope itself withered in the helpless expression I saw on his face.

' "Haven't you heard, Mary," he said lamely, "how essential this marriage is to me?"

' "By the Lord!" cried Robert, coming forward and putting his arms about me; and he looked the only man in the room who was a true man, as he stood there, full of indignant scorn. "The cur will deny his own blood! Now I will marry the girl, and be glad to give happiness to a good woman so abominably tricked. She shall marry me, now— to-day; and, by God, this child of hers shall be my child, and whoever breathes a whisper that it is not, I'll kill him!"

' "We'll make it all right about the money," said Mr. Giles nervously.

'Robert had moved me towards the door, and although, only a short while before, I had loved Alexander, I felt courage and confidence, even something that might be happiness— something that afterwards proved happiness— in the arms that guided me; but as Mr. Giles spoke he released me and turned so savagely that I held to him, frightened of what he might do. '

' "Another word of money and I shall do to both of you what both of you deserve. This that I am going to do is because of love for Mary; because of love for Mary I shall love her child and it shall be mine. But there shall be no stain of money against it; neither now nor ever shall we take one penny of it!' And then he almost lifted me in his arms and carried me out.'

The old lady paused dramatically, and young Robert gasped.

'So Alexander Giles was really my father's father,' he said in a strained voice.

'Robert Fennessy was more than a father to him,' said the old lady warmly. 'He made a good man of him; and Alexander Giles's son died an acknowledged bla'guard, suiciding to escape disgrace. Robert fulfilled his promise; there was nothing mean or jealous in his nature. He loved your father as if indeed he had been his own son; and then, when Alexander Giles was lonely in his old age, he left a will leaving property to your father, provided that he should take his name! But it is the name of Robert James Fennessy that is the good name! To my sorrow we had no children that were his; but in the making of good men Robert was his son, and you are his grandson, Bob. He was satisfied with that— died happy with that; would I take any money to cheat the spirit of a good man of his reward?'

THERE was something piteously appealing in the old lady's attitude; a cry against some impending injustice to a fine memory. Young Bob sprang upright.

'Grandma, you're right!' he said. 'Money we can make, but there are things it cannot purchase. As far as I'm concerned, I'm Robert James Fennessy.'

There was a strain in his attitude. His hands were clenched, his mouth was drawn into a determined line, and he looked straight ahead. It was as if he was challenging May Waters, fearful of what she might feel, with his determination.

He need not have been fearful, for she was in a minute. standing beside him, one arm linked through his, and her other hand taking his hand.

'It is what I would expect from you, Bob,' she said. 'I think I prefer to be Mrs. Fennessy.'

________________________

19: Violets

Daily Telegraph (Sydney) 2 May 1938

THE desire to kill was in Richard Talbot's heart as his car raced through the darkness, scorning speed-limits— the violence of a quiet man awakened to a sense of intense wrong.

In the long, open stretches the trees and fences blurred shadows darker than the night pass the car.

Grimly Talbot reflected that if, in his dangerous speed, he killed himself, it would be all to the good. There was killing ahead, in any case.

Probably poor little Esme— he pitied her fragility strongly, even as he thought violently of her; certainly the man who had wrecked his life with her. If he survived this reckless, headlong rush through the night, he would be in Melbourne to meet the boat...

It was strange that life's serenity could be shattered like this, all in a few hours. Of course, the shattering influence must have been at work for some time. There had probably been an estrangement growing between them for months.

The disappearance of the endearments once necessary between them, the substitution of matter-of-fact relations, had meant nothing to Talbot.

Absorbed In his business, and quite uninterested in his wife's social fripperies, he had imagined that she found full satisfaction in those, and the realisation that, if he was tired and indifferent, at times, it was because he was hard-worked— and the work was mainly for her. Each of them, he thought, was happy in his or her own way, and still essential to one another.

"I saw your wife on the Ormonde, just before she left," Hardy told him after an after-business drink. "I went down to say goodbye to old Haywood. He's taking his wife for a trip to Europe— lucky devil !"

"Yes?" said Talbot. There was nothing in Hardy's remark. His wife, too. was probably farewelllng some friends. Talbot had never been particularly interested in her friends. Mostly, they were not his sort.

"AFTER I left the boat, I waited about until the Ormonde cast off," said Hardy. "I thought I might give Esme a lift in the car up to town, but I didn't spot her anywhere."

There was nothing in that— until later. The later was when Talbot had gone home to a flat that held no Esme, none of the usual preparations for dinner; after he had paced the rooms, wondering what had happened that the routine of their lives should have such a break as her absence, without notification that would relieve his anxiety. And, finally, after he had found that remnant of a letter. It was in a man's handwriting.

…boat does not leave now until 4 pm., so it would be best not to be there until a little before that time. But please don't miss coming. We'll get away...

It was only when he read that that suspicion crashed into the mere loving anxiety he had felt for an unexplained absence. With it rage.

What a shabby way to leave a man who, with all his staidness, which may hot have suited her volatile disposition, had slaved for her, given her every luxury he could afford! To go without a, word... just leave him as if he and his feelings mattered nothing. Not even an excuse— the silly, paltry excuse women can sometimes find— for her going!

He searched for more remnants that would fit the slip of paper, but could find nothing. As he passed a photograph of his wife, which smiled at him, he crashed it to the floor, put his foot on the frame. Like that he would crush the woman who had played him false.

And then, strangely, he picked up the photograph, shaking , out the broken glass, and placed it, but face downwards, on the table. There was a curious regret that he would have to kill a woman for whom he had once felt such tenderness as had been his.

Who was the man? He regretted now that he had not considered Esme's friends more closely. Perhaps her old glory-box, which kept all her treasures, would give him some, revelation.

He tore open the lid, tossed out the contents. There was nothing until he came to some bundles of letters tied with ribbon in a corner. He pounced upon them. There was a stab in his heart! They were his letters— all the letters he had ever written to her. And in amongst them was, a bunch of violets, faded and dry, but still fragrant.

He remembered when he had given that bunch— he supposed it was that particular bunch she had kept for its memories. She was very fond of violets. There was a reaction. She had treasured these memories of him before he ceased to be a lover. But...

As his car raced Melbourne-wards he had decided that he must kill her, but with tenderness in the slaying, as for one who was still dear but had soiled herself and was better dead.. The man who had led her away would certainly die.

There was a man selling violets outside the wharf as Talbot strode through the gates, just opened to allow friends to approach the newly-berthed liner. Talbot, built up to an overbearing wrath, felt inclined to overturn the basket of flowers and trample them underfoot. He was first up the gangway; nobody suspected, that the hand in his pocket was fingering a revolver. He made a demand for Mrs. Talbot, scarcely believing, however, to find her under that name. "You're not Mr. Talbot, are you?"

"I'm Mr. Talbot," he said grimly.

"So you came over, sir! That was good of you. Your wife was worried out of her mind about your being anxious. She got me to send wireless message after message to you."

Talbot noticed that the man was a wireless officer.

"We've looked after her. Accidents like that happen sometimes. She was in their cabin with her friends, Mr. and Mrs. Somers, when the boat moved out, and we were outside the Heads before—"

Talbot raced back to the wharf. When he was back again, and Esme, with a glad cry, sprang forward; as she saw him, he had a gift of violets In his hand.

_________________

20: The Greatest Joke

Weekly Times (Melbourne) 16 Dec 1939

WHEN Jimmy Byron tore the tail from the last white shirt still untailed and arranged it nattily in the pocket of his coat as a handkerchief, he was ready for the street. He had already inked carefully over the cracks in his well-polished shoes, and cut the frays from his cuffs. But between him and the street lay a dragon; a landlady fierce with the injury of long-unpaid rent. Jimmy knew that her housewifely activity in the hall below was only to enable her to be on the spot when he sallied forth; and he wondered who would get tired first: she of lying in wait, or himself of waiting for her to get tired of lying in wait.

She had already rattled his door twice; by intense silence he had tried to give her the impression that he was already gone, or was fast asleep or dead.

Cautiously, once or twice, he opened the door an inch or so to reconnoitre; each time he closed it again, swiftly.

It was after one of these occasions that the Great Joke came to him in a flash. Eagerly he seized pen and paper and wrote it out: then, leaning back, he allowed himself to enjoy his own work. The brilliancy of it intoxicated him; careless of landladies, he let out a mighty guffaw. That sign of his presence brought his landlady upon him with a swoop, broom in hand.

Greatly to her surprise, the door opened; the unexpectedness of it landed her almost into Jimmy's arms.

"NOW, Mr. Bryan!" she began, triumphantly, making the "now" a tremendous word. "It's seven weeks' rent you owe this day, and nothing have I received from you but the half-crown deposit you paid on the room the first afternoon. Excuses don't pay no butchers' bills, or—"

"Listen to this, Mrs Smallhash!" he demanded, in an exultation that ignored the hostility of her tone. "It's great!"

"What I want to listen to, Mr Bryan, is the chink of your money."

"No, but, listen! This is money," he appealed, and .impressed by his manner, she found herself listening, found herself bursting into a laugh which landed her in a fit of helplessness on a chair.

"Oh, dear me! Oh, dear!" she gasped. "That is good!"

"It is," he declared. "It's the greatest joke the world has ever been given. The editor of the Bugle will take that like a shot. I must go into town and sell it right away."

Mrs Smallhash let him go, still laughing in spasms as she remembered the greatness of the joke. Not for a moment did she calculate how payment for a single joke was going to size up against seven weeks' rent. She had a guileless faith in the rewards of literary effort that is fairly widespread; dimly she recalled magazine stories in which the starving genius in a garret, having astonishingly received a cheque instead of a rejected manuscript, was miraculously transported from abject poverty to conditions of luxury, in which he was almost insultingly aloof to newspaper reporters who came to interview him and secure his photograph. She remembered, too, that the literary genius often took his good-natured landlady to the luxurious surroundings as privileged housekeeper. She would be a good-natured landlady. Instead of making the cold mutton do, she found herself recklessly preparing a feast in which steak and kidney pie was a feature.

With a spring in his gait, Jimmy sped along the street and came upon Bellairs and Tommy Sinclair at the street corner before they could escape. Quite a lot of people tried to escape when they saw Jimmy coming. If he did not want to borrow money, he let them pay for drinks whilst he read them something he had written.

But this morning there was a joyful exultation in Jimmy's manner that took them by storm. Before they could rouse in defence he was reading to them— a common enough occurrence; but when he had finished, they were laughing— which was a rarity.

This joke of his was great— irresistible. They laughed uncontrollably. They bought him drinks and got him to read his joke to the barman and others, whilst they stood by, proud to be friends of such a man. Their friendship even stood the test of a "nip" of half-a-crown each; and the hotelkeeper let Jimmy "slate" a round of drinks on his own account.

It took some time for Jimmy to reach the Bugle office; he had left a trail of laughter in a chain of bars by the time the journey was completed. For the mood he was in, it was nothing to him that the editor was busy and had no time to see him.

"How did you get here?" said the editor turning upon him with amazement and something of a snarl in his tone. "I slipped in. I want to give you the Greatest Joke that ever "

The editor was about to tell him to clear out, but he suddenly found himself— hardened as he was— laughing.

Jimmy, ignoring his wrath, had read the joke— and the wrath faded. Instead, he reached his hand for the paper, read it himself, and laughed again.

"I didn't think you could do anything like that, Bryan," he said, candidly. "It's tip-top."

"I want some cash."

"All right!" The editor, with a sigh for the ways of contributors, prepared to mark the copy.

"Double rates." said Bryan. "It's something out of the bag, isn't it?"

"Oh, very well!" said the editor. The head printer, hands full of proof sheets, came in. "Here's a tip-top Joke Bryan's just brought in. What is it, Bryan?"

Bryan tried to deliver it extemporaneously, and was puzzled.

It sounded flat. The editor looked suspiciously at him.

"That wasn't it," he said.

"No," said Jimmy. Something elusive in his joke, something that was the essence of its humor, had eluded him. He read from the script in his hand, and the head printer guffawed, joining in the now milder laughter of the editor.

The joke shook the whole Bugle office. It was superb; one of those outstanding brilliancies only discovered once in half a century; it earned a magic that made everybody contacting with it desire to pass on the laugh to someone else.

The machinations of Carew, faithful custodian of joke-gags, and of some members of the staff to whom he read the gem of hilarity, attracted the attention of others. Smithers, unable to catch quite the essence of it when he tried to retail it on the composing floor, dashed down to borrow the written slip. As it went from hand to hand it spread a wave of laughter through the whole building.

The editor, his burden of duty slackened, remembered the joke as he talked to a friend who had called in to see him; He tried to tell it and failed; so he rang to Carew to bring the copy in.

"Without a doubt it's the best joke this paper has had for years," he said— "and that means its one of the best jokes in the world," he added, hastily. He laughed again, anticipating the delight of his visitor Carew rushed through the building in pursuit of the copy-slip; and it was then that the discovery was made.

The joke was lost.

Somebody in the composing room had placed the slip upon a "stone" (composing table) under a "stick" of type, intending to show it to a temporarily absent colleague when he returned; somebody had found that that few inches of type was wanted, and in a hurry had seized it without replacing any other weight A draught and an open window had no doubt accounted for the disappearance of the flimsy sheet of paper.

While a frenzied search was made in the lane below for the missing slip, Carew spoilt sheet after sheet of paper in trying to reconstruct the great Joke. Several attempts seemed to set out its form: and yet re-read, they were all tame. Something indefinable— it may have been an inflection on a word, a misplaced aspirate, some twist which made the essence of the joke — could not, be recalled.

When the editor, impatient of the delay, gave another imperative call, the catastrophe had to be revealed.

The editor was wrathful and alarmed; but as no one was able to recall the joke in its full beauty there was only one thing to be done. Jimmy Bryan, an irresponsible with no sense of perspective, might demand impossible things if he thought his joke was highly valued, but he had to be found.

Two members of the staff rushed out with imperative instructions to bring him to the office, whatever the cost in beer. They followed a trail of liquor which tangled itself strongly, going to far pubs and then doubling back to near ones. Jimmy had been having the time of his life. Bellairs, Sinclair, and his other friends of the morning had spread the fame of his achievement. People who had been prone to avoid Jimmy were glad to meet him and fete him. One single Joke had already been transmuted into gallons of beer and innumerable half-crowns, for Jimmy was one who, in the matter of borrowing "a coupler bob," missed no opportunity.

Tales of the laughter that marked the trail heartened the pursuers.

IT was after a prolonged search that Jimmy, between the two of them, fell into the lift at the Bugle office. They sat him in a chair, and an attempt was made to bring his mind out of the clouds of alcohol in which it floated.

"That joke, Jimmy?" he was asked.

"It's a pretty good joke." Jimmy laughed hilariously. "Ish th' finesht joke in the worl'sh hishtry," he declared, modestly.

"Well, tell it to us."

"You jush' wait," said Jimmy, shaking his head sagely, "You jush' wait till it— hic— comesh out in the Bugle."

Jimmy was shaken, urgently and firmly. "Wake up, Jimmy! This is the Bugle. Your joke has got mislaid, and we want you to repeat it, so that we can write it down again. Come on, Jimmy."

He stared at his interrogators with glassy eyes.

"Wha'?" he cried, suddenly. "You losht my joke— my beauful joke?" He became tearful. "You loarsht th' besht joke ever made? Oh, you murderersh!"

"But you can remember it, Jimmy," he was reminded. "You've been telling it to other people."

"I can'sh! I haven'sh!" Jimmy moaned. "I can'sh remember the dash' thing. I've— hic— been tellin everyshbody t' wait till they shee it in the Bugle!"

The truth was accepted slowly, unwillingly. The Greatest Joke was lost forever, because the slip of paper upon which it had been given form in the first flash of the brilliant idea had disappeared. Jimmy was pushed off the Bugle premises, moaning and spluttering fiercely by turns.

He appealed to heaven for information about how a man was to pay his landlady when people lost his jokes. He accused the Bugle, which lost a man's jokes, of being responsible for all his debts and his misfortunes. In a loud, challenging voice, standing on pavement in front, he declared his Intention of starting proceeding for damages.

It took another five shillings to get rid of him.

_________________

21: Homing the Goose

Sun (Sydney) 24 Dec 1939

ONE of the best things the Christmas season brings is the Good Excuse. Sandy Donovan took advantage of it to post on his door a notice, "Back in 10 Minutes," when he went round to the Most Disreputable Club in Sydney, where he was more likely to stay ten hours.

Three clients had called and waited, accepting the door-sign in good faith, before, at the Most Disreputable Club, the goose intruded itself with the seventh drink.

Donovan, good chap that he was, hardly understood that a goose came into the story; what he did understand was that something was going to be raffled for some good cause. He understood, too, of course, that the good cause was the same shabby member who put the proposition; but, seeing it was Christmas, he said, "Sher'n'ly," as well as he was able and put in his money.

It was after he and his friends, having had a game of dominoes, had returned to the bar, where they were seeing who could lose the most on the poker machine, that Donovan had the news broken to him that he had won the goose.

It was broken to him by Darcy, the shabby raffle-promoter, in a manner that was like an invitation to himself to drink with Donovan at Donovan's expense. Donovan, almost as if he was delighted, issued the invitation. It was Christmas.

As food, Donovan hated poultry of every description, goose being his particular aversion. In a vague way he remembered that geese had something to do with saving Rome, and, with a recollection of the horrors Latin used to give him as a schoolboy, he felt a greater antipathy to geese than ever. It would have been far better if Rome had not been saved. Still he had a look at his goose, dumped in a corner with its head poked out of a slit in the bag. It cocked its eye at its new owner as he approached, and then, stretching its neck, hissed at him.

"Dam' silly bird," said Donovan. "It hisses at the only man in the club who wouldn't want to eat it. What do I wanna goose for?"

"It's only young. It will eat beautifully," said the raffle-man.

Something like a shudder shook Donovan at the thought. "I don't wanna eat it!" he said. "As far as I'm concerned, you can have the damn goose. Here— I'll make you a present of it."

It was after the twelfth drink, when Donovan and his friends were playing a friendly game of crib (with "who kisses Polly" at the end of it) that the goose made a re-entry.

"I put you into the new raffle, Mr. Donovan," he heard someone say, "and you won it again!"

Donovan turned with a cold eye and saw the shabby man beside him. Obviously he expected the goose to be returned to him again, so that he could extract raffle-money once more; and the expectation irritated even the good-natured Donovan. The raffle business was being carried too far. He felt, though he did not say it,— "respectable" having become a difficult word— that he was a respectable business man; and he objected to being made the target for the silver of raffle-investors who would be prepared to eat a goose if they won it.

"All ri', I'll keep it," he said shortly.

The shabby, man's face fell as if somebody in whom he had put all his trust had been false.

"I'll keep it, if I have to eat it myself." said Donovan, with sudden irascibility.

Nevertheless he handed his prize to the most forgetful steward in sight, and proceeded with Christmas.

It has been remarked, I think, that it was Christmas. It was this steward who chased him when he left the club, forgetting a goose being one thing, but not remembering a prospect of a tip being quite another. He was carrying a parcel which said "Ya-wuck! Yawuck!" at intervals. Donovan, swaying a bit uncertainly, found himself with a bag containing a goose in his hand.

"You were leaving it," the steward panted. "Your goose. See you tomorrow, Mr Donovan."

Donovan had not time to get even the soda-water in his speech before, plainly hopeful of the tip his thoughtfulness would bring him in the morning, the steward was gone. He felt like a fool, standing there with his goose in the bag. Only the certainty that he would look more foolish if he tried to throw it away stayed a half-formed resolution.

Again, as he waited for a tram, he had an idea of dumping his burden into a street waste-basket; but the curious looks which bystanders were sending his way deterred him. His trouble almost sobered him.

"Nice goose that," remarked his neighbor on the tram.

"Yes; would you mind if I gave it to you?" Donovan answered, eagerly, preparing to hand the bag over.

The man got off the tram— hurriedly, Donovan thought— wondering how mad he must have seemed, trying to give away a goose like that. He put the abomination under the seat and tried to forget it. He might have succeeded if the tram-guard had not hauled it out and pursued him with it after he had alighted at the Central Station.

Thoughts full of bitterness were Donovan's as he neared his suburban station with the goose still on his mind if not on his hand. He had dumped it in the small baggage compartment at the end of the carriage and found a seat at the other end. The effort to abandon the thing by leaving it on a seat at the Central Station had proved a failure, owing to the shrill intervention of other passengers. He had an uncomfortable memory of having previously heard a voice say:

"The old pot looks shot. We'll 'ave ter see 'e doesn't forget that goose of 'is; 'is missus might go off at 'im If 'e gits 'ome minus. I allus believe in 'elping n bloke when 'e's potty."

Donovan's desire to get rid of the bird before he reached home now amounted to a passion; yet he felt he must be careful not to reveal it— especially remembering the curious behavior of the man who had hurried off the tram. He must try strategy. Not until the train was about to move off from his station did he rise to his feet, and jump off— at the end remote from that in which the goose occasionally proclaimed its presence by a "Yawuck! Yawuck!"

As the carriages began to move past him, he congratulated himself on his escape. A little too soon. The air seemed to be suddenly full of protesting goose as his deserted luggage, helpfully hurled from the train, caught him full in the face.

People rushed to help him to his feet. Their greatest anxiety a positively fiendish anxiety— seemed to be to see that, he did not forget his luggage.

"Merry Christmas!" cried each of his helpers, as, having aided him through the station gate, they moved off in different directions.

Donovan felt murder in his heart. As he crossed the road, dawdling to allow the other passengers to disperse, he noticed a boy standing under the street light at the corner of the road. The youngster looked curiously at the bag he carried. The goose, indignant at recent treatment, was being particularly offensive.

"Son!" called Donovan, as he came near. "How'd you like me to give you a goose?"

The boy suddenly decided that there was something wrong about Donovan. He edged into the roadway, suspiciously.

"Don't be scared of me, sonny," said Donovan. "It's Christmas. I wanna make people presents."

The boy made up his mind; he turned tail and fled into the darkness.

Donovan could have wept. Why was the world so full of cussedness? If he had really wanted that goose, there would be thousands of people trying to steal it from him.

An inspiration came to him as he passed a fence. He knew there was a poultry yard on the other side. Looking carefully around to see that he was unobserved, he lifted his bundle above his head, resolved to push it over the top of the fence, a high one. The goose "yawucked" horribly.

There was a scrambling sound and a man's head and shoulders appeared over the top.

"HERE! What do you think you're doing? What's that you've got?"

"It's a goose," Donovan explained. "And I don't want it."

"What's wrong with it?" demanded the man on the fence "There's nothing wrong with it I won it in a raffle."

"Oh, a raffle!" sneered the man. "Of course! Well, you' take your b—  goose away. I've got prize fowls here, an' you're not going to throw any diseased poultry amongst them."

"Look." explained Donovan, desperately, "it's a perfectly good goose. It's young, and it'll eat beautifully. But I don't want "

"You're either drunk or you've stolen it and got cold feet. My advice to you is to get home— and take the goose with you. If you hang round here, I'll put the hose on you."

The man disappeared.

An idea that he was getting the hose ready caused Donovan to move briskly. The inhabitants of the bungalows seemed to be all hosing their gardens or airing themselves on their verandahs. Donovan felt somehow that he was an object of curiosity. To abandon the burden here was obviously impossible.

At the street corner a ragged individual almost bumped into him. He apologised.

"Could you spare us a sixpence, mister?" said the ragged man. "I'm outer work an' can't git the dole, an' me wife an'—"

A GREAT hope dawned on Donovan. "Here's a bob, my poor man," he said. "An', look! I'll do more than that. I'll make you a present of this goose."

"Er— will you? What's wrong with the goose?" asked the man suspiciously.

"There's nothing, wrong with it." Donovan could have roared the words. "It's a perfectly good goose I don't want it, that's all."

Donovan sensed that the man still had a misgiving but was prepared to take a risk, even as he left the goose on his hands and hurried home. He knew that the stranger followed him, watching him until he entered his home, evidently to give himself reassurance about a queer transaction.

At home, however, Donovan was at ease. He had got rid of his barnacle. There was no wife present to remark about his lateness, and the smell of whisky he had brought with him; she was going to take the children, he remembered, to see the city shops. He made himself comfortable on the verandah; and; heavy with whisky he dozed.

"Yawuck! Yawuck!"

Donovan woke with a start. It seemed that he was haunted; geese had been in his dreams. There was a crunch on the gravelled path as Donovan leaped to his feet.

"This man says," began the policeman—

"Didn't you give me the goose?" demanded the ragged man. "Didn't you say I could 'ave it?"

"That's right, constable," said Donovan. "I gave it to him. Y'see, I've been winning geese all day in raffles, an' I don't want it."

"Well, that's all right then," said the policeman, handing over the bag he carried. "Here's your goose."

"I'm damned if I want the goose, now. A goose ain't much use to me, an' if a man tries to sell it 'e's liable to be accused of stealin' it and run in. If somebody was to give me a coupler bob he could keep the damned goose."

Donovan broke into a perspiration. "I'll give you two bob — if you take it away."

The man's hesitation was putting Donovan in a frenzy.

"The constable knows you didn't steal the goose. You'll be all right."

"You consider yourself lucky, and get along," said the policeman. He lingered as the man shuffled away. Obviously he had expectations of his own, the gent, being in a giving mood; and the gent., cursing the trouble the bird had cost him, gave him some whisky and a few Christmas shillings for himself.

Then Donovan went to bed to forget a world over which geese were brooding like a nightmare. Not even the late arrival of his wife and family disturbed him.

"Yawuck! Yawuck!"

Donovan sat up suddenly in the darkness, and put on the electric light. Was he dreaming?

"Yawuck! Yawuck!"

His wife; disturbed by the light, moved.

"That's the goose," she said, sleepily.

"What goose?"

"Coming away from the railway station I met a poor man who was trying to sell a goose. He seemed in need of money and all he wanted was five shillings. So I bought it."

Donovan turned out the light and subsided, groaning, amongst the bedclothes.

________________

22: Don't Kick My Dog

Weekly Times (Melbourne) 15 June 1940

THE only things that buzzed in Bungeroo were the flies. The place seemed dead beyond the hope of a resurrection.

Blogger, advance agent for the Smart Crack Comedy Company, depressed already by the news, in a frantic letter from the manager, that if they did not raise the wind in Bungeroo they could not get any further— they would be "stranded"— wondered whether it would not be better to start without delay on the walk back to the metropolis.

He felt sorry for little Tootsie Martin, who would have to go back, disillusioned, from her first opportunity— such as it was— to play lead to her regular job in the ballet; that is, if she could get it.

And then a dog yelped. Not much in that to change the fortunes of many people; but life is made of changes caused by equally small things.

"Hey, Ted! Cramson kicked your dawg!" cried someone invisible. A grizzle -bearded man paused in the street and half turned; and the heavy man who. in his shirt-sleeves, was leaning against a verandah post of the hotel opposite, spoke insultingly.

"Yes; I kicked your dog! An' I'll kick the mangy cur any time it comes on my verandah."

"Oh, would yer?" inquired the grizzled man, pugnaciously; and turned back.

Blogger, who had been looking despondently out of the parlor window, hurried into the street. He was amazed; there was really some life in Bungeroo.

A crowd had gathered, and the whole eleven, including Blogger and the local sergeant, helped to tear apart the two men, who by this time were rolling on the ground, doing their middle-aged best to punch one another. They were dragged to their feet, very dirty and full of threats; and the general heated argument was reflected in dog-fights on the outskirts.

"He had no right to kick his dog," remarked Blogger, drawn into the argument that was everybody's. He found a burly stranger shaking hands with him.

"You're a man! Come 'n' have a drink," said the burly one.

Blogger, thinking sadly of Tootsie and the Smart Crack Comedy Company. so much in danger of ceasing to be smart and of cracking to pieces, felt that the idea was an excellent one, and made a move.

"No, not there. That's that swine Cramson's pub. Come over the road."

Blogger was willing; his own reception by Cramson had been surly; Cramson didn't want theatricals taking money that might go into his till. He was a swine. Cramson!

That was the general opinion in Dixon's pub, where the bar was shortly crowded. Quite by accident Blogger had expressed an opinion which coincided with local sentiment and, given by a stranger, represented the new of the outside world on a local matter: and he was the guest of honor, almost of equal importance to grizzled Ted Bayers, who bore an honorable scar on his cheek, and considerable dust on his clothes and person, as mementoes of his scuffle.

Fortified by free whiskey, the opportunity to talk about the Smart Crack Comedy Company, and the evidence that there was life in the town that had seemed dead, Blogger's own spirits revived.

"What's the show called?" asked Ted.

"Don't Kick My Dog," returned Blogger. A sudden brain-wave had moved him to that reply. To Blogger, whose thoughts were working alertly, it seemed a bright idea. It did not matter much in general what such a show as the Smart Crackers presented was called as long as the title was snappy and topical; and that the new title, which had been a heaven-sent inspiration, certainly was.

Bungle, the manager, would have to drag in a dog somehow: it might even be Ted Sayers's dog. It seemed obvious that people in Bungeroo would be more interested in "Don't Kick My Dog" than in the Fun and Frivolity Revue."

Everybody in the bar announced the intention of being present. That— without wives and families— meant the hall rent, and more. The barmaid wanted to know if tickets could be booked right away. She was, no doubt, looking for a cavalier who would volunteer to take her.

Blogger felt exalted. Reluctantly he tore himself away from the scene of festivity and— to him— free whiskey. Work had to be done.

He waited at the office of the Bungeroo and Tallawong Bugle while some printing was put through to put over the bills. Scribbler, the editor, had heard about ills public-spirited remark, and made no mention of cash. Scribbler had his own difficulties with Cramson.

"Cramson and Sergeant Thomas and Martin the Shire President, have got to go," said Scribbler with the air of a dictator. "Cramson never advertises in the Bugle; the three are a menace. I will make the incident the subject of my next leader."

"The Smart Crack Comedy Company," began Blogger, "has no sympathy."

"The "The event may seem small, but it will be big in its effects, " said the editor. "Look at the result of the attempt to collect ship money in England! Revolutionary!"

"Yes; these shipping companies are hot in their charges."

Blogger did not pretend to be a student of history but he had had much theatrical experience, including payment of fares. His spirits continued to rise as he pasted bills. People on foot, on horseback, in dilapidated buggies, and in cars new and old, but mainly old. were drifting into Bungeroo. There was a real population in the place, then!

The people pulled up and said, "Hey, what's this about someone kicking someone's dog?"

And Blogger told them all about it, and all about the Smart Crack Comedy Company. His brain, agreeably excited, turned over a line to give Bingle for Tootsie Martin to speak.

"The man who lays his foot upon a dog except in the way of kindness is not a man's bootlace!"

Something like that. It would go great! He had some misgiving whether Bingle would not appropriate it for his own use.

He was just telling all about the Smart Crackers to the man in the motor car, far out on the outskirts when this stranger interrupted.

"It's lucky I met you. I don't want to be mixed up in their little squabbles. I'm Podger, the local member; and anything I can do for you I'll do, but don't mention you've seen me."

"I won't. Can I say in the Bugle that the performance is under your patronage?"

Podger, as he turned his car, gave his consent. Blogger was jubilant.

AT THE Cross-roads Arms nearby all the male inhabitants of these outskirts appeared to have assembled, having knocked off work to discuss the dog Incident in Bungeroo.

As one who could give first-hand details, as well as news about the Smart Crack Comedy Company, Blogger was hailed with more free drinks. When he boarded the train for Tallawong, with a crowd of citizens attending to see him off, he had had a lot more free drinks.

"What's this about someone in Bungeroo being bitten by a dog?" asked one of his fellow-passengers as the train moved. Interest was equally keen at Tallawong . in fact a whole vast region seemed to have been stirred to the depths by the kicking of a dog.

Blogger's jaw grew sore with talking of the dog incident and the great company he was bringing to the district.  The feeling was mostly anti-Clamson for reasons Blogger only gathered vaguely— anti-Sergeant Thomas and anti-Shire President Martin, but there was another faction.  Apart from the dogs, which appeared to know all about the commotion, so that Blogger was always liable to find himself tripping over dog-fights, there were also men-fights, even as far away as Wallegerne, where Blogger helped to separate two combatants.

"There wasn't anything personal," Tom said one of them "When I said that n man had no right to kick another man's dog. I wasn't thinking of you. Smith insulted your wife, and you were perfectly entitled to kick his dog."

Blogger began to realise that there were side-issues in the etiquette concerning dog-kicking.

In the midst of his elation, despondency again came to Blogger. It arrived with a letter from Bungle, the manager. The epistle began with "What the hell," and announced bitterly that Bungle had no intention of playing at Bungeroo.

"You have landed me into the middle of a dog-fight. What the hell am I to do with a dog in the show?" There was a lot of the letter, with hell hovering closely  through its pages.

BLOGGER saw all his good work being crushed by a man who had no imagination. He sent an urgent  telegram to Bungle imploring him m one Bungeroo a fly.  But he was so doubtful of the result and so down-hearted that he replied abstractedly when a man at dinner asked him what he would do with a man who hit his dog with a golf-stick, supposing he had a dog, and forgot to mention the Smart Crackers.

It was days later that he got back to Bungeroo. He arrived about midnight when the show— if it had taken place— would be all out, to find the town en fete. Heartened, yet with misgiving still in his heart, he tried to dodge Bungle until he had fortified himself with a drink, and found out just what had happened.

But Bungle burst from a hilarious crowd upon seeing him and literally fell upon his neck.

"A wonderful night, my boy!' he cried. And for the first time in history he thrust some money into Blogger's hand without being asked for it.

Revellers surged round Blogger and bore him to the bar. The Smart Crack Comedy Company had had a tremendous success, assisted by popular feeling and the fact that Podger, M.L.A., gave an address during the interval. And a line about a man who kicked a dog being no man had caused the house to rock with applause. It was spoken by Owen Golightly, who in private life was Mrs Bungle. Podger was present, and by the way he spoke, regarded himself as responsible for the lot of it.

It seemed that Cramson was selling out, Sergeant Thomas was being removed, and Martin was expected to resign. Why, Blogger did not bother to learn. But Podger seemed to claim responsibility for that too. It seemed to Blogger that the main cause had been forgotten.

"And how's the dog?" he asked Ted Bayers as, in the course of the drinking, they paired off.

"The dog? Oh! it wasn't my dog," said Bayers, off-handedly.

Blogger was dumbfounded.

"Not your dog!" he exclaimed. "But because he kicked it, you punched Cramson!"

Bayers grinned.

"Well, he thought it was my dog, the cow!" he said.

________________________

23: Trousers Trouble

Weekly Times (Melbourne) 30 August 1941

INEZ loved Tom, but hated his trousers. Matters less important than trousers— which certainly are important— have wrought human disaster affecting larger interests than the serenity of a small household in the outer suburbs, and Inez had reached a stage when she wondered whether she shouldn't close the chapter of her romance with Tom.

There was, of course, another man in the offing. There generally is when a woman wanders in that way. Even if anyone had known what was going on in the mind of Inez, it would have been impossible to tell her that trousers were the basic cause of the trouble. That would have been an absurd anti-climax to the emotional storms which were leading her towards a decision.

A thousand pities that such a romance as that of Tom and Inez should be spoilt! It was one of those splendid affairs in which nothing really mattered but the mutual affection that transformed a cottage in the wilderness into a palace, made even privation, endured in a spirit of loving sacrifice, happiness. They had shared an enormous quantity of happiness of that description.

But a cloud came over the happiness. That cloud, reduced to the simple element, was old pants. Tom's love for old clothes amounted almost to a passion. Tom hated to have to be careful about what he wore. Five minutes after he arrived home he would be in his "old clobber" and at ease.

"You make me ashamed, going about in those old trousers," Inez remarked, so often that Tom took it almost as a habit. "People might mistake you for a bottle-oh."

"That's an idea!" was one of Tom's bright retorts, given with a laugh. "I ought to become a bottle-oh and make real money. The first steps of affluence is to look like one."

It never occurred to Tom, in spite of the incessant complaints, that the old trousers were a real grievance to Inez. What a tripey idea! It simply pleased the old dear to have a pick at his sartorial habits. In his own house a man made himself comfortable, and he did as he liked.

BUT the thing really got upon Inez's nerves. Being compelled to show some respect for the clothes which he wore into town, Tom seemed to avenge himself upon those he wore at home. The suit that had seemed quite respectable before the arrival of a new one (always long in coming) relegated it to the position of old clothes, was in a few days an untidy remnant of sartorial glory.

In desperation, once, Inez had taken an old pair of trousers that particularly offended her and cast them out; but Tom's dog, an intelligent animal, recognised its master's pants in the bush at the back of the fence and dragged them in. And Tom put them on, although their adventures had not improved them.

"Trying to make me respectable, eh?" Tom would laugh, when he found the old trousers washed and mended. He would kiss her for thanks; and in a day or so the trousers would be disreputable again

There came a day when a man paused in an uncertain way before the gate, and, after a little hesitation, unfastened the latch.

"Why, Elton!" cried Tom, and hurried to meet him. He dragged his visitor towards the house, crying, "Look who's here, Inez!"

"I bought a little property down here— 'Temperley'— you may know it," Elton Somers explained. "It's a spec., and I intend to live in it until I sell it. Saves the cost of a caretaker. I heard you were living about here, so I thought—"

"Come right in! It's fine to see you!" cried Tom.

Inez seconded his cordiality, but felt miserable. What was most in her mind was the comparison between the clothes-elegance of Elton Somers and the untidiness of Tom. It humiliated her.

In other days Somers' fastidiousness had inclined her to laugh at him. She had decided that the careless Tom was the better man. Now she felt irritated with Tom for presenting an appearance that would give Elton the impression that they were much poorer than they really were. She imagined— it may have been pure imagination— that there was a look in Elton's face that combined pity with triumph.

When Inez came back from preparing some tea it was to find Tom leaning back in his chair with one leg cocked over the other in a manner that showed a long rent in the trouser-leg, through which the bare flesh peeped. Tom was maddening.

"WHAT d'you think, Inez?" cried Tom. "Elton's still unmarried! On his way to be a crusty old bachelor."

"I took a trip abroad for a holiday when— a few years ago," remarked Elton. That would have been when he disappeared after her marriage, to Tom. "I may go again. It's very interesting— travelling."

It was as though he was letting her know what she had missed. Tom's trousers, flaunting poverty, became a positive offence, especially with Elton a regular visitor. Tom, she felt, should help her to hold up their end.

"Surely you can get that new suit now," she told him. "Then you could l use the one you're wearing at home— and you might make an effort to keep it tidy."

"Both guesses wrong," laughed Tom. "The new suit's about due, of course. but that birthday party for little Madge alters the calendar. I just about did the coat on that and the presents."

Tom was a dear. He would much rather give little Madge- and herself I — a good time than buy clothes for himself.

"And I spent the trousers on our old Battalion reunion," added Tom cheerfully. "The new suit's off for a while."

Elton, dropping in often, found her I alone one day.

"You're happy, Inez?" he asked suddenly.

"Of course I am! Tom's a darling. You've got to live with him to know how sunny his disposition is. He's never put out about anything."

"I'm glad," he said slowly. "I thought I saw something in your face that — well, justified my question. You know, Inez. I... I'm Tom's friend, but, if I thought you were not happy."

He left it at that, breaking off his speech. He would have spoilt everything if his approach had been abrupt. For Inez, apart from being fond of Tom, was conventional, and would have treated any open love-making as an insult. But it was flattering for her to know that Elton's feelings had been sufficiently intense to keep him single.

Subtly he managed to let her understand that his devotion, his money, were still at her disposal. The impression he gave in talking about his experiences abroad was that he had felt lonely. And he made friends with little Madge.

"SOME day I'm going to run away with you," he laughed, playing with her one evening. "In a big boat— right away, miles and miles, over the sea."

"Can I go, daddy?" Madge called, gleefully.

And Tom laughed.

Strangely, that trip became a possibility in Inez's mind. It was dangerous for any woman to have the thoughts that came to her. One was that she was making a sacrifice by remaining Tom's wife; another, that, after all, he did not care much for her.

Before she knew it, Elton's devotion ceased to be something merely to smile at. As a woman can, she allowed her mind to be swept by emotional arguments in which the possible change was for Tom's sake, and that of the child who linked them. Madge, growing into girlhood, into womanhood, must have the refinements that make life. For her to grow up to regard as natural a father who wandered about the place looking like a tramp was a prospect that appalled.

Elton, with his eternal fastidiousness, had a new appeal. It was possible, too, that Inez and Madge were too great a burden for Tom's shoulders. Who would have dared to tell her that the basic cause of her emotional ! stress was a pair of disreputable trousers? It was probably an inner knowledge that she was offering herself fallacious arguments that made her desperate about those pants.

"You must have a new suit," she told Tom, desperately. "You don't realise how ashamed you make me."

"Inez, darling, I wish you'd drop the subject. My house trousers may be bad enough, but they're not as bad as the way you talk about them. Anyway, we had a party last week, and that definitely postponed my new suit. Unless I have some luck this week the old pants will have to hang on until Christmas."

He went out with a laugh, and left, her feeling strangely desperate. She was battling with thoughts all day; when afternoon came, the vision of Tom coming home again to his dilapidated raiment was almost a nightmare.

Elton had asked her frequently to have a look at Temperley She would go taking Madge, and she would say the word for which Elton was waiting. He had given her the impression that he could leave at a moment's notice.

"IF I made up my mind to travel again, I could walk right out. Just lock up and leave my agent to look after my property," he had said. He probably intended the significance for her Inez saw in the remark.

Probably that would be it; Elton would take her and Madge right away. He would not want to give her a chance to change her mind. She felt so certain of it that she even left a note for Tom. Tranquility came to her when the decision was made. The haphazard, troublous life with Tom was to be a thing of the past; ease and refinement, at least, would be at her command. Her heart felt sore at the hurt she was giving to Tom; she consoled herself by believing that in the relief from burdens too great for him. He would find consolation.

Over a well-trimmed hedge, Inez saw the head and shoulders of Elton, stooping over some work. He looked up with surprise and embarrassment.

"I'm doing a bit of a job in the garden," he said. He showed none of the quiet gladness of welcome she had expected; it was rather reluctantly that he walked to meet her at the gate as she made her way there. She stared at him.

"I'm afraid I'm in rather a messy condition to entertain a lady." He laughed awkwardly.

"I thought we might have a look at Temperley; but tomorrow will do as well. I was taking Madge for a walk in any case," Inez said, lamely.

"Tomorrow would be better," he said, with alacrity. Inez could have slapped his face. Then he grinned sheepishly, looking down at the dilapidated trousers he was wearing.

"I'm afraid I'm a sight: but I believe in taking care of my clothes. I always wear old duds when I'm doing rough work."

TOM, at least, wore his rags with a laughing unconsciousness that disarmed all criticism but her own; Elton was merely grotesque. The possibilities that had presented themselves slipped back again into the realm of absurdity.

Inez fled home in time to rip that foolish note into fragments. She had just disposed of two pieces when Tom joyously swooped into the house and tossed big parcels on a chair as he took her in his arms.

"I've had my slice of luck!" he cried, "And, to please you, I bought a suit— it's ready-made, but it fits me like a glove. Those old pants won't worry you for a while."

The way she hugged him, kissing him again and again, amazed Tom.

"How absurdly women go on about clothes," he reflected, grinning inwardly.

__________________

Table of Contents

1: The Twisted Mind

2: Out of the Storm

3: Scotch Blood

4: The Hope Beyond the Horizon

5: The Blind

6: Locksley is Out

7: The Mercy of the Seas

8: The Winner

9: Vendetta

10: Christine's Christmas Stocking

11: Obsession

12: Stars

13:  My Elephant

14: Domestic Economy

15: The Man Who Died

16: The Eagle

17: Babes, Bears, Birthdays and Burglars

18: The Proud Name of Fennessy

19: Violets

20: The Greatest Joke

21: Homing the Goose

22: Don't Kick My Dog

23: Trousers Trouble