XIX

The work that I did as the most junior member of the _Chronicle's_

literary staff no doubt possessed some of the merits which usually

accompany enthusiasm.

Memory still burdens me with the record of one or two articles thought

upon which makes my skin twitch hotly. It is remarkable that matter so

astoundingly crude should have seen the light of print. But, when one

comes to think of it, the large, careless newspaper-reading public,

the majority, remains permanently youthful so far as judgment of the

written word is concerned; and so it may be that raw youngsters, such

as I was then, can approach the majority more nearly than the tried

and trained specialist, who, just in so far as he has specialised as a

journalist, has removed himself from the familiar purview of the

general, and acquired an outlook which, to this extent, is exotic.

At all events, I know I achieved some success with articles in the

_Chronicle_ of a sort which no experienced journalist could write,

save with his tongue in his cheek; and tongue-in-the-cheek writing

never really impressed anybody. What seems even more strange to me, in

the light of later life and experience, is the fact that upon several

occasions I proved of some value to the business side of the

_Chronicle_. My efforts actually brought the concern money, and

increased circulation. I find this most surprising, but I know it

happened. There were due solely to my initiative 'interviews' with

sundry leading lights in commerce, and in the professional sporting

world, which were highly profitable to the paper; and this at a time

when the 'interview' was a thing practically unknown in Australian

journalism.

Stimulated perhaps by the remarks of the good Mr. Smith, my room-mate,

I planned ventures of this kind in bed, descending fully armed with

them upon Mr. Foster by day, in most cases to fire him, more or less,

by my own enthusiasm. Upon the whole I earned my pay pretty well while

working for the _Chronicle_, even having regard to the several small

increases made therein. If I lacked ability and experience, I gave

more than most of my colleagues, perhaps, in concentration and

initiative.

The two things most salient, I think, which befell in this phase of my

life were my determination to go to England, and my only adolescent

love affair; this, as distinguished from the sentimental episodes of

infancy and childhood, which with me had been a rather prolific crop.

The determination to make my way to England, the land of my fathers,

did not take definite shape until comedy, with a broad smile, rang

down the curtain upon my love affair. But I fancy it had been a long

while in the making. I am not sure but what the germ of it began to

stir a little in its husk even at St. Peter's Orphanage; I feel sure

it did while I browsed upon English fiction in my little wooden room

beside the tool-shed at Dursley. It was near the surface from the time

I began to visit Mr. Rawlence's studio in Macquarie Street, and busily

developing from that time onward, though it did not become a visible

and admitted growth, with features and a shape of its own, until more

than two years had elapsed. Then, quite suddenly, I recognised it, and

told myself it was for this really that I had been 'saving up.'

In the Old World the adventurous-minded, enterprising youth turns

naturally from contemplation of the humdrum security of the

multitudinously trodden path in which he finds himself to thoughts of

the large new lands; of those comparatively untried and certainly

uncrowded uplands of the world, which, apart from the other chances

and attractions they offer, possess the advantage of lying oversea,

from the beaten track--over the hills and far away. 'Here,' he may be

supposed to feel, as he gazes about him in his familiar, Old World

environment, 'there is nothing but what has been tried and exploited,

sifted through and through time and again, all adown the centuries.

What chance is there for me among the crowd, where there is nothing

new, nothing untried? Whereas, out there--' Ah, the magic of those

words, 'Out there!' and 'Over there!' for home-bred youth! It is good,

wholesome magic, too, and it will be a bad day for the Old World, a

disastrous day for England, when it ceases to exercise its powers upon

the hearts and imaginations of the youth of our stock.

Well, and in the New World, in the case of such sprawling young giants

among the nations of the future as Australia, what is the master dream

of adventurous and enterprising youth there? Australia, like Canada,

has its call of the west and the north, with their appealing tale of

untried potentialities. Canada has also, across its merely figurative

and political southern border, a vast and teeming world, reaching down

to the equator, and comprising almost every possible diversity of

human effort and natural resource. Australia, the purely British

island continent, is more isolated. But, broadly speaking, the very

facts which make the enterprising Old World youth fix his gaze upon

the New World cause the same type of youth in Australia, for example,

to look home-along across the seas, toward those storied islands of

the north which, it may be, he has never seen: the land which, in some

cases, even his parents have not seen since their childhood.

'Here,' he may be imagined saying, as he looks about him among the raw

uprising products of the new land, where the past is nothing and all

hope centres upon the future, 'Here everything is yet to do;

everything is in the making. Here, money's the only reward. Who's to

judge of one's accomplishment here? Fame has no accredited deputy in

this unmade world. Whereas, back there, at home--' Oh, the magic of

those words 'At Home!' and 'In England!' alike for those who once have

seen the white cliffs fade out astern, and for those who have seen

them only in dreams, bow on!

Everything has been tried and accomplished there. The very thought

that speeds the emigrant pulls at the heart-strings of the immigrant;

drawing home one son from the outposts, while thrusting out another

toward the outposts, there to learn what England means, and to earn

and deserve the glory of his birthright. That, in a nutshell, is the

real history of the British Empire....

But, as I said, before final recognition of the determination to go to

England came my youthful love affair. With every apparent deference

toward the traditions of romance, I fell in love with the daughter of

my chief; and my fall was very thorough and complete. I was in the

editorial sanctum one afternoon, discussing some piece of work, and

getting instructions from Mr. Foster--'G.F.' as we called him--when the

door was flung open, as no member of the staff would ever have opened

it, and two very charming young women fluttered in, filling the whole

place by their simple presence there. One was dark and the other fair:

the first, my chief's daughter Mabel; the second, her bosom friend,

Hester Prinsep.

'Oh, father, we're all going down to see Tommy off. I want to get some

flowers, and I've come out without a penny, so I want some money.'

My chief had risen, and was drawing forward a chair for Miss Prinsep.

I do not think he intended to pay the same attention to his daughter,

but I did, and received a very charming smile for my pains. Upon which

G.F. presented me in due form to both ladies. Turning then to his

daughter, he said with half-playful severity:

'You know, Mabel, we are not accustomed to your rough and ready Potts

Point manners here. We knock at doors before we open them, and do at

least inquire if a man is engaged before we swoop down upon him

demanding his money or his life.'

'Father! as though I should think of you as being engaged! And as for

the money part, I thought this was the very place to come to for

money.'

'Ah! Well, how did you come?'

'The cab's waiting outside.'

'Dear me! You may have noticed, Freydon, that cabmen are a peculiarly

gallant class. They don't show much inclination to drive us about when

we have no money, do they?'

Then he turned to Miss Prinsep. 'And so your brother really starts for

England to-day, Hester? I almost think I'll have to make time to dash

down and wish him luck.'

'Oh, do, Mr. Foster! Tommy would appreciate it.'

'Yes, do, father,' echoed Miss Foster. 'Come with us now. That will be

splendid.'

'No, I can't manage that. You go and buy your flowers, and I'll try

and get away in time to take you both home. Here's a sovereign; and-- Ah!

you'd better have some silver for your cab. H'm! Here you are.'

'Thanks awfully, father. You are a generous dear. That will be lots.

The cab's Gurney's, you see, so I can tell him to put it down in the

account. But the silver's sure to come in handy, for I'm dreadfully

poor just now.'

G.F. shrugged his shoulders, with a comic look in my direction.

'Feminine honesty! Take the silver, and tell the cabman to charge me!

Freydon, perhaps you'd be kind enough to see this brigand and her

friend to their cab, will you? I think we are all clear about that

article, aren't we? Right! On your way ask Stone to come in and see

me, will you?'

So he bowed us out, and I, in a state of most agreeable fluster,

escorted the ladies to their waiting cab.

'Good-bye, Mr. Freydon,' said Mabel Foster as she gave me her softly

gloved little hand over the cab door. And, from that moment, I was her

slave; only realising some few minutes later that I had been so

unpardonably rude as never even to have glanced in Miss Prinsep's

direction, to say nothing of bidding her good-bye.

Miss Foster's was a well recognised and conventional kind of beauty,

very telling to my inexperienced eyes, and richly suggestive of

romance. Her eyes were large, dark, and, as the novelists say,

'melting.' Her face was a perfectly regular oval, having a clear olive

complexion, with warm hints of subdued colour in it. Her lips were

most provocative, and all about the edges of that dark cloud, her

hair, the light played fitfully through a lattice of stray tendrils. A

very pretty picture indeed, Miss Foster was perfectly conscious of her

charms, and a mistress of coquettishness in her use of them. A true

child of pleasure-loving Sydney, she might have posed with very little

preparation as a Juliet or a Desdemona, and to my youthful fancy

carried about with her the charming gaiety and romantic tenderness of

the most delightful among Boccaccio's ladies. (Sydney was just then

beginning to be referred to by writers as the Venice of the Pacific,

and I was greatly taken with the comparison.)

A week or so later, I was honoured by an invitation to dine at my

chief's house one Saturday night; and from that point onward my visits

became frequent, my subjugation unquestioning and complete. This was

the one brief period of my youth in which I flung away prudence and

became youthfully extravagant, not merely in thought but in the

expenditure of money. I suppose fully half my salary, for some time,

was given to the purchase of sweets and flowers, pretty booklets and

the like, for Mabel Foster; and, of the remainder of my earnings, the

tailor took heavier toll than he had ever done before.

For example, when that first invitation to dinner reached me--on a

Monday--I had never had my arms through the sleeves of a dress-coat.

Mr. Smith kindly offered the loan of his time-honoured evening suit,

pointing out, I dare say truly, that such garments were being 'cut

very full just now.' But, no; I felt that the occasion demanded an

epoch-marking plunge on my part; and to this end Mr. Smith was good

enough to introduce me to his own tailor, through whom, as I

understood, I could obtain the benefit of some sort of trade reduction

in price, by virtue of Mr. Smith's one time position as a commercial

traveller.

During the week the eddies caused by my plunge penetrated beyond the

world of tailoring, and doubtless produced their effect upon the white

tie and patent leather shoe trade. But despite my lavish preparations,

Saturday afternoon found me in the blackest kind of despair. Fully

dressed in evening kit, I had been sitting on my bed for an hour, well

knowing that all shops were closed, and facing the lamentable fact

that I had no suitable outer garment with which to cloak my splendour

on the way to Potts Point. It was Mr. Smith who discovered the

omission, and he, too, who had made me feel the full tragedy of it.

The covert coat he pressed upon me would easily have buttoned behind

my back, and Mrs. Hastings's kindly offer of a shawl (a vivid plaid

which she assured me had been worn and purchased by no less an

authority upon gentlemen's wear than her father) had been finally,

almost bitterly, rejected by me.

It was then, when my fate seemed blackest to me, that Mr. Smith

discovered in the prolific galleries of his well-stored memory the

fact that it was perfectly permissible for a gentleman in my case to

go uncovered by any outer robe, providing--and this was

indispensable--that he carried some preferably light cloak or overcoat

upon his arm.

'And the weather being close and hot, too, as it certainly is to-night,

I'll wager you'll find you're quite in the mode if you get to

Potts Point with my covert coat on your arm. So that settles it.'

It did; and I was duly grateful. It certainly was a hot evening, and

in no sense any fault of Mr. Smith's that its warmth brought a heavy

thunderstorm of rain just as I began my walk up the long hill at Potts

Point, so that, taking shelter here and there, as opportunity offered,

but not daring to put on the enormously over-large coat, I finally ran

up to the house in pouring rain, with a coat neatly folded over one

arm. A few years later, no doubt, I should have been glad to slip the

coat on, or fling it over my head. But--it did not happen a few years

later....

My worshipful adoration of Miss Foster made me neglectful even of Mr.

Rawlence's Sunday afternoon receptions. To secure the chance of being

rewarded by five minutes alone with her, in the garden or elsewhere, I

suppose I must have given up hundreds of hours from a not very

plentiful allowance of leisure. And it is surprising, in retrospect,

to note how steadfast I was in my devotion; how long it lasted.

The young woman had ability; there's not a doubt of that. For, ardent

though I was, she allowed no embarrassing questions. I am free to

suppose that my devotion was not unwelcome or tiresome to her, and

that she enjoyed its innumerable small fruits in the shape of

offerings. But she kept me most accurately balanced at the precise

distance she found most agreeable. My letters--the columns and columns

I must have written!--were most fervid; and a good deal more eloquent,

I fancy, than my oral courtship. But yet I have her own testimony for

it that Mabel approved my declamatory style of love-making; the style

used when actually in the presence.

The end was in this wise: I called, ostensibly to see Mrs. Foster, on

a Saturday afternoon, when I knew, as a matter of fact, that my chief

and his wife were attending a function in Sydney. It was a winter's

day, very blusterous and wet. The servant having told me her mistress

was out, and Miss Mabel in, was about to lead me through the long,

wide hall to the drawing-room, which opened through a conservatory

upon a rear verandah, when some one called her, and I assured her I

could find my own way. So the smiling maid (who doubtless knew my

secret) left me, and I leisurely disposed of coat and umbrella, and

walked through the house. The shadowy drawing-room was empty, but, as

I entered it, these words, spoken in Mabel's voice, reached me from

the conservatory beyond:

'My dear Hester, how perfectly absurd. A little unknown reporter boy,

picked up by father, probably out of charity! And, besides, you know I

should always be true to Tommy, however long he is away. Why, I often

mention my reporter boy to Tommy in writing. And he is delicious, you

know; he really is. I believe you're jealous. He is a pretty boy, I

know. But you'd hardly credit how sweetly he-- Well, romances, you

know. He really is too killingly sweet when he makes love-- Oh, with

the most knightly respect, my dear! Very likely he will come in this

afternoon, and you shall hear for yourself. You shall sit out here,

and I'll keep him in the drawing-room. Then you'll see how well in

hand he is.'

It was probably contemptible of me not to have coughed, or blown my

nose, or something, in the first ten seconds. But the whole speech did

not occupy very many seconds in the making, and was half finished

before I realised, with a stunning shock, what it meant. It went on

after the last words I have written here, but at that point I retired,

backward, into the hall to collect myself, as they say. I had various

brilliant ideas in the few seconds given to this process. I saw

myself, pitiless but full of dignity, inflicting scathing punishment

of various kinds, and piling blazing coals of fire upon Mabel's pretty

head. I thought, too, of merely disappearing, and leaving conscience

to make martyrdom of my fair lady's life. But perhaps I doubted the

inquisitorial capacity of her conscience. At all events, in the end, I

rattled the drawing-room door-handle vigorously, and re-entered with a

portentous clearing of the throat. There was a flutter and patter in

the conservatory, and then the hitherto adored one came in to me, an

open book in her hand, and witchery in both her liquid eyes.

And then a most embarrassing and unexpected thing happened. My wrath

fell from me, carrying with it all my smarting sense of humiliation,

and every vestige of the desire to humiliate or punish Mabel. I was

left horribly unprotected, because conscious only of the totally

unexpected fact that Mabel was still adorable, and that now, when

about to leave her for ever, I wanted her more than at any previous

time. Then help came to me. I heard a tiny footfall, light as a leaf's

touch, on the paved floor of the conservatory. I pictured the

listening Hester Prinsep, and pride, or some useful substitute

therefor, came to my aid.

'I'm afraid I've interrupted you,' I said, making a huge effort to

avoid seeing the witchery in Mabel's eyes. 'I only came to bring this

book for Mrs. Foster. I had promised it.'

'But why so solemn, poor knight? What's wrong? Won't you sit down?'

said Mabel gaily.

'No, I mustn't stay,' I replied, with Spartan firmness. And then, on a

sudden impulse: 'Don't you think we've both been rather mistaken,

Mabel? I've been silly and presumptuous, because, of course, I'm

nobody--just a penniless newspaper reporter. And you--you are very

dear and sweet, and will soon marry some one who can give you a house

like this, in Potts Point. I--I've all my way to make yet, and--and so

I'd like to say good-bye. And--thank you ever so much for always

having been so sweet and so patient. Good-bye!'

'Why? Aren't you--Won't you--Good-bye then!'

And so I passed out; and, having quite relinquished any thought of

reprisals, I believe perhaps I did, after all, bring a momentary

twinge of remorse to pretty, giddy Mabel Foster. I never saw her again

but once, and that as a mere acquaintance, and when almost a year had

passed.