There was one fellow, I remember, who did offer to show me round: I fell across him in a saloon in George Street. He was tall and handsome, and as spic and span as a new pin till you came to look under the surface. When he entered the bar he winked at the girl who was serving me, and as soon as I’d finished my drink asked me to take another with him. Seeing what his little game was, and wanting to teach him a lesson, I lured him on by consenting. I drank with him, and then he drank with me.
“Been long in Sydney?” he enquired casually, looking at me, and, at the same time, stroking his fair moustache.
“Just come in,” was my reply.
“Don’t you find it dull work going about alone?” he enquired. “I shall never forget my first week of it.”
“You’re about right,” I answered. “It is dull! I don’t know a soul, bar my banker and lawyer, in the town.”
“Dear me!” (more curling of the moustache). “If I can be of any service to you while you’re here, I hope you’ll command me. For the sake of ‘Auld Lang Syne,’ don’t you know. I believe we’re both Englishmen, eh?”
“It’s very good of you,” I replied modestly, affecting to be overcome by his condescension. “I’m just off to lunch. I am staying at the Quebec. Is it far enough for a hansom?” As he was about to answer, a lawyer, with whom I had done a little business the day before, walked into the room. I turned to my patronising friend and said, “Will you excuse me for one moment? I want to speak to this gentleman on business.”
He was still all graciousness.
“I’ll call a hansom and wait for you in it.”
When he had left the saloon I spoke to the new arrival. He had noticed the man I had been talking to, and was kind enough to warn me against him.
“That man,” he said, “bears a very bad reputation. He makes it his trade to meet new arrivals from England—weak-brained young pigeons with money. He shows them round Sydney, and plucks them so clean that, when they leave his hands, in nine cases out of ten, they haven’t a feather left to fly with. You ought not, with your experience of rough customers, to be taken in by him.”
“Nor am I,” I replied. “I am going to teach him a lesson. Would you like to see it? Then come with me.”
Arm in arm we walked into the street, watched by Mr. Hawk from his seat in the cab. When we got there we stood for a moment chatting, and then strolled together down the pavement. Next moment I heard the cab coming along after us, and my friend hailing me in his silkiest tones; but though I looked him full in the face I pretended not to know him. Seeing this he drove past us—pulled up a little further down and sprang out to wait for me.
“I was almost afraid I had missed you,” he began, as we came up with him. “Perhaps as it is such a fine day you would rather walk than ride?”
“I beg your pardon,” I answered; “I’m really afraid you have the advantage of me.”
“But you have asked me to lunch with you at the Quebec. You told me to call a hansom.”
“Pardon me again! but you are really mistaken. I said I was going to lunch at the Quebec, and asked you if it was far enough to be worth while taking a hansom. That is your hansom, not mine. If you don’t require it any longer, I should advise you to pay the man and let him go.”
“You are a swindler, sir. I refuse to pay the cabman. It is your hansom.”
I took a step closer to my fine gentleman, and, looking him full in the face, said as quietly as possible, for I didn’t want all the street to hear:
“Mr. Dorunda Dodson, let this be a lesson to you. Perhaps you’ll think twice next time before you try your little games on me!”
He stepped back as if he had been shot, hesitated a moment, and then jumped into his cab and drove off in the opposite direction. When he had gone I looked at my astonished companion.
“Well, now,” he ejaculated at last, “how on earth did you manage that?”
“Very easily,” I replied. “I happened to remember having met that gentleman up in our part of the world when he was in a very awkward position—very awkward for him. By his action just now I should say that he has not forgotten the circumstance any more than I have.”
“I should rather think not. Good day.”
We shook hands and parted, he going on down the street, while I branched off to my hotel.
That was the first of the only two adventures of any importance I met with during my stay in New South Wales. And there’s not much in that, I fancy I can hear you saying. Well, that may be so, I don’t deny it, but it was nevertheless through that that I became mixed up with the folk who figure in this book, and indeed it was to that very circumstance, and that alone, I owe my connection with the queer story I have set myself to tell. And this is how it came about.
Three days before the steamer sailed, and about four o’clock in the afternoon, I chanced to be walking down Castlereagh Street, wondering what on earth I should do with myself until dinnertime, when I saw approaching me the very man whose discomfiture I have just described. Being probably occupied planning the plucking of some unfortunate new chum, he did not see me. And as I had no desire to meet him again, after what had passed between us, I crossed the road and meandered off in a different direction, eventually finding myself located on a seat in the Domain, lighting a cigarette and looking
