You are getting well on in the thirties, and haven't left off being a
fool yet. You have been away in another colony or country for a year or
so, and have now come back again. Most of your chums have gone away or
got married, or, worse still, signed the pledge--settled down and got
steady; and you feel lonely and desolate and left-behind enough for
anything. While drifting aimlessly round town with an eye out for some
chance acquaintance to have a knock round with, you run against an old
chum whom you never dreamt of meeting, or whom you thought to be in some
other part of the country--or perhaps you knock up against someone who
knows the old chum in question, and he says:
“I suppose you know Tom Smith's in Sydney?”
“Tom Smith! Why, I thought he was in Queensland! I haven't seen him for
more than three years. Where's the old joker hanging out at all? Why,
except you, there's no one in Australia I'd sooner see than Tom Smith.
Here I've been mooning round like an unemployed for three weeks, looking
for someone to have a knock round with, and Tom in Sydney all the time.
I wish I'd known before. Where'll I run against him--where does he
live?”
“Oh, he's living at home.”
“But where's his home? I was never there.”
“Oh, I'll give you his address.... There, I think that's it. I'm not
sure about the number, but you'll soon find out in that street--most of
'em'll know Tom Smith.”
“Thanks! I rather think they will. I'm glad I met you. I'll hunt Tom up
to-day.”
So you put a few shillings in your pocket, tell your landlady that
you're going to visit an old aunt of yours or a sick friend, and mayn't
be home that night; and then you start out to hunt up Tom Smith and have
at least one more good night, if you die for it.
. . . . .
This is the first time you have seen Tom at home; you knew of his home
and people in the old days, but only in a vague, indefinite sort of way.
Tom has changed! He is stouter and older-looking; he seems solemn and
settled down. You intended to give him a surprise and have a good old
jolly laugh with him, but somehow things get suddenly damped at the
beginning. He grins and grips your hand right enough, but there seems
something wanting. You can't help staring at him, and he seems to look
at you in a strange, disappointing way; it doesn't strike you that you
also have changed, and perhaps more in his eyes than he in yours. He
introduces you to his mother and sisters and brothers, and the rest of
the family; or to his wife, as the case may be; and you have to suppress
your feelings and be polite and talk common-place. You hate to be polite
and talk common-place. You aren't built that way--and Tom wasn't either,
in the old days. The wife (or the mother and sisters) receives you
kindly, for Tom's sake, and makes much of you; but they don't know you
yet. You want to get Tom outside, and have a yarn and a drink and a
laugh with him--you are bursting to tell him all about yourself, and get
him to tell you all about himself, and ask him if he remembers things;
and you wonder if he is bursting the same way, and hope he is. The old
lady and sisters (or the wife) bore you pretty soon, and you wonder
if they bore Tom; you almost fancy, from his looks, that they do. You
wonder whether Tom is coming out to-night, whether he wants to get out,
and if he wants to and wants to get out by himself, whether he'll be
able to manage it; but you daren't broach the subject, it wouldn't be
polite. You've got to be polite. Then you get worried by the thought
that Tom is bursting to get out with you and only wants an excuse; is
waiting, in fact, and hoping for you to ask him in an off-hand sort of
way to come out for a stroll. But you're not quite sure; and besides, if
you were, you wouldn't have the courage. By-and-bye you get tired of
it all, thirsty, and want to get out in the open air. You get tired of
saying, “Do you really, Mrs. Smith?” or “Do you think so, Miss Smith?”
or “You were quite right, Mrs. Smith,” and “Well, I think so too, Mrs.
Smith,” or, to the brother, “That's just what I thought, Mr. Smith.”
You don't want to “talk pretty” to them, and listen to their wishy-washy
nonsense; you want to get out and have a roaring spree with Tom, as you
had in the old days; you want to make another night of it with your
old mate, Tom Smith; and pretty soon you get the blues badly, and feel
nearly smothered in there, and you've got to get out and have a beer
anyway--Tom or no Tom; and you begin to feel wild with Tom himself; and
at last you make a bold dash for it and chance Tom. You get up, look
at your hat, and say: “Ah, well, I must be going, Tom; I've got to meet
someone down the street at seven o'clock. Where'll I meet you in town
next week?”
But Tom says:
“Oh, dash it; you ain't going yet. Stay to tea, Joe, stay to tea. It'll
be on the table in a minute. Sit down--sit down, man! Here, gimme your
hat.”
And Tom's sister, or wife, or mother comes in with an apron on and her
hands all over flour, and says:
“Oh, you're not going yet, Mr. Brown? Tea'll be ready in a minute. Do
stay for tea.” And if you make excuses, she cross-examines you about the
time you've got to keep that appointment down the street, and tells you
that their clock is twenty minutes fast, and that you have got plenty of
time, and so you have to give in. But you are mightily encouraged by
a winksome expression which you see, or fancy you see, on your side of
Tom's face; also by the fact of his having accidentally knocked his foot
against your shins. So you stay.
One of the females tells you to “Sit there, Mr. Brown,” and you take
your place at the table, and the polite business goes on. You've got to
hold your knife and fork properly, and mind your p's and q's, and when
she says, “Do you take milk and sugar, Mr. Brown?” you've got to say,
“Yes, please, Miss Smith--thanks--that's plenty.” And when they press
you, as they will, to have more, you've got to keep on saying, “No,
thanks, Mrs. Smith; no, thanks, Miss Smith; I really couldn't; I've done
very well, thank you; I had a very late dinner, and so on”--bother such
tommy-rot. And you don't seem to have any appetite, anyway. And you
think of the days out on the track when you and Tom sat on your
swags under a mulga at mid-day, and ate mutton and johnny-cake with
clasp-knives, and drank by turns out of the old, battered, leaky billy.
And after tea you have to sit still while the precious minutes are
wasted, and listen and sympathize, while all the time you are on the
fidget to get out with Tom, and go down to a private bar where you know
some girls.
And perhaps by-and-bye the old lady gets confidential, and seizes an
opportunity to tell you what a good steady young fellow Tom is now that
he never touches drink, and belongs to a temperance society (or the
Y.M.C.A.), and never stays out of nights.
Consequently you feel worse than ever, and lonelier, and sorrier that
you wasted your time coming. You are encouraged again by a glimpse of
Tom putting on a clean collar and fixing himself up a bit; but when you
are ready to go, and ask him if he's coming a bit down the street
with you, he says he thinks he will in such a disinterested,
don't-mind-if-I-do sort of tone, that he makes you mad.
At last, after promising to “drop in again, Mr. Brown, whenever you're
passing,” and to “don't forget to call,” and thanking them for their
assurance that they'll “be always glad to see you,” and telling them
that you've spent a very pleasant evening and enjoyed yourself, and are
awfully sorry you couldn't stay--you get away with Tom.
You don't say much to each other till you get round the corner and
down the street a bit, and then for a while your conversation is mostly
common-place, such as, “Well, how have you been getting on all this
time, Tom?” “Oh, all right. How have you been getting on?” and so on.
But presently, and perhaps just as you have made up your mind to chance
the alleged temperance business and ask Tom in to have a drink, he
throws a glance up and down the street, nudges your shoulder, says “Come
on,” and disappears sideways into a pub.
. . . . .
“What's yours, Tom?” “What's yours, Joe?” “The same for me.” “Well,
here's luck, old man.” “Here's luck.” You take a drink, and look over
your glass at Tom. Then the old smile spreads over his face, and it
makes you glad--you could swear to Tom's grin in a hundred years. Then
something tickles him--your expression, perhaps, or a recollection of
the past--and he sets down his glass on the bar and laughs. Then you
laugh. Oh, there's no smile like the smile that old mates favour each
other with over the tops of their glasses when they meet again after
years. It is eloquent, because of the memories that give it birth.
“Here's another. Do you remember----? Do you remember----?” Oh, it all
comes back again like a flash. Tom hasn't changed a bit; just the same
good-hearted, jolly idiot he always was. Old times back again! “It's
just like old times,” says Tom, after three or four more drinks.
. . . . .
And so you make a night of it and get uproariously jolly. You get as
“glorious” as Bobby Burns did in the part of Tam O'Shanter, and have a
better “time” than any of the times you had in the old days. And you see
Tom as nearly home in the morning as you dare, and he reckons he'll get
it hot from his people--which no doubt he will--and he explains that
they are very particular up at home--church people, you know--and, of
course, especially if he's married, it's understood between you that
you'd better not call for him up at home after this--at least, not till
things have cooled down a bit. It's always the way. The friend of the
husband always gets the blame in cases like this. But Tom fixes up a
yarn to tell them, and you aren't to “say anything different” in case
you run against any of them. And he fixes up an appointment with you for
next Saturday night, and he'll get there if he gets divorced for it.
But he MIGHT have to take the wife out shopping, or one of the girls
somewhere; and if you see her with him you've got to lay low, and be
careful, and wait--at another hour and place, perhaps, all of which is
arranged--for if she sees you she'll smell a rat at once, and he won't
be able to get off at all.
And so, as far as you and Tom are concerned, the “old times” have come
back once more.
. . . . .
But, of course (and we almost forgot it), you might chance to fall in
love with one of Tom's sisters, in which case there would be another and
a totally different story to tell.