CLUB LIFE IN AUSTRALIA.
I've been assured by fellow countrymen exiled in this land that if you
take an Australian into your club he'll put his hand in his pocket and
ask you what you will have to drink. That, of course, is just a little
demonstration, meaning that he feels perfectly at home.
The Australian clubs take on all sorts of names, but the same atmosphere
pervades the lot. In some clubs are men who have been members for years
who couldn't tell you where the reading-room was. They only know the way
to the bar.
But to return to the atmosphere of Australian clubs, I am assured by
friends that it is engendered of a rank and common suspicion that one
member is going to endeavour to borrow money from another. One feels the
constraint in the air at once, and no one gets jolly and hilarious in
consequence, but just "cunning" drunk. A man can't escape the borrower
in Australia--and he gauges the standing of a club by the magnitude of
the loan a member suggests.
A visitor to an Australian club can never be sure as to whom he is going
to meet. If a tailor happens to be in a fair way of business he
probably makes the members of some club feel uncomfortable every time a
glass door swings open. Pinero said something derogatory about
solicitors in clubs. They're in all Australian clubs. I have heard of a
solicitor taking revenge out of an Australian who had been dodging
service of a writ, issued from the said solicitor's office, for weeks.
But the Australian guessed the boy with the writ was on the pavement and
evaded the solicitor's stare by putting a comic paper between him and
it. One also meets the dentist in most Australian clubs.
Some of the developments of the literary club are peculiar to Australia.
For example, on the selection committee of the Johnsonian Club,
Brisbane, is a man whose greatest literary effort was the announcement
to a gasping audience that "There were no cases set down for hearing at
the Police Court this morning." In the same club are many who could not
tell you who Boswell was any more than some members of the Melbourne
Yorick could tell you what Hamlet killed behind the arras. If you asked
after midnight the most literary of them they would, as one voice, say,
"A blood-red mouse."
I have been at some loss to know what makes a person eligible for
membership at one of the many Australian city clubs. But enquiry has
brought to light some "pilling" episodes. I have known a father pilled
for membership of a club and his son go through all right. But the
father had educated the son up as a snob. He dressed better than his
governor and sponged on him. I have often wondered if the old chap knew
what a compliment the members of the club paid him in deciding he was
not fit to associate with his son.
The languid swell element has invaded all Australian clubs. Publicans'
sons most do congregate in them when people who work for a living are
out after a crust. These youths take mental exercise reading the
theatrical gossip and social columns of the weekly snob papers. They are
walking encyclopaedias of useless information, and may be trusted to make
fools of themselves on all occasions.
They experience a great joy in pointing out to foolish little girls in
the street a man in the public eye as So-and-So, "a honorary member of
our club." So-and-So, probably an imported actor, however, is blissfully
unaware of his advertiser's existence.
These Australian clubs metaphorically tumble over each other to have a
distinguished visitor to toady to, and to get a little of the reflected
glory they will sign chits for his drinks till all's blue, if he happens
to be sufficiently hoggish to keep pace with them.
In the absence of any intellectual powers, the Australian clubman's idea
of thoroughly entertaining a guest is to get drunk with him. To put a
man to bed--take his boots off and all that--is the height of his
hospitality.
Some Australians in their cups to-day will wax reminiscent on the days
when "the nights we used to have at the old Bandicoot Club."
There is an expression in Australia, "Blind as a bandicoot." It's at
variance with natural history, but most sayings are in conflict with
fact in Australia. Truth there dwells at the bottom of an artesian
bore.