The work that gave me most satisfaction at this time was writing of a
kind which I could not induce my chief to favour for his own purposes.
He said it was not sufficiently 'legitimate journalism' for the
_Chronicle_. (The 'eighties were still young.) And only at long
intervals was I able to persuade him to accept one or two examples,
though I insisted it was the best work I had ever attempted for the
paper; as, indeed, it very likely was.
'But this is practically a story,' or 'This is really fiction,' or
'This is a sketch of a personal character, not a newspaper feature,'
he would say. And then, one day, in handing me back one of my rejected
offspring, he said: 'Look here, Freydon, see if you can condense this
a shade, and then send it to the editor of the _Observer_. I've
written him saying I should tell you this.'
I followed this kindly advice, and, a month later, enjoyed the
profound satisfaction of reading my little contribution in the famous
Australian weekly journal. The fact would have no interest for any one
else, of course, but I have always remembered this little sketch of a
type of Australian bushman, because it was the first signed
contribution from my pen to appear in any journal of standing; the
first of a series which appeared perhaps once in a month during the
rest of my time in Sydney.
People I met in Mr. Rawlence's studio occasionally mentioned these
sketches, and I took great pleasure in them. Incidentally, they added
to my hoard at the bank. Mr. Smith, my room-mate at North Shore, had
hitherto regarded my newspaper work strictly from a business
standpoint; judging it solely by the salary it brought. Suddenly now I
found I had touched an unsuspected vein of his character. He was
surprisingly pleased about these signed _Observer_ sketches. This was
authorship, he said; and he spoke to every one, with most kindly
pride, of his young friend's work.
My account at the savings bank touched the desired two hundred pounds
mark, when I had been just three years and nine months in Sydney. I
decided to add to it until I had completed my fourth year; and,
meantime, made inquiries about the passage to England. From this point
on I made no secret of my intentions, and a very kindly reply came
from Mrs. Perkins in Dursley to the letter in which I told her of my
plan. At a venture I addressed a letter to Ted, my old friend of
_Livorno_ days; but it brought no answer. Neither had the letter of
nearly four years earlier, in which his loan of one pound had been
returned with warm thanks.
The months slipped by, and the fourth anniversary of my start in
Sydney arrived; and still I postponed from day to day the final step
of resigning my appointment, and booking my passage. I cannot explain
this at all, for I had become more and more eager for the adventure
with every passing month. I do not think timidity restrained me. No, I
fancy a kind of epicurean pleasure in the hourly consciousness that I
was able now to take the step so soon as I chose induced me to prolong
the savouring of it; just as I have sometimes found myself
deliberately refraining for hours, and even for a day or so, from
opening a parcel of books which I have desired and looked forward to
enjoying for some time previously.
The awakening from this sort of epicurean dalliance was, as the event
proved, somewhat sharp and abrupt.
I did presently resign my post and engage my second-class berth in the
mail steamer _Orion_. Upon this reservation I paid a deposit of twenty
pounds; and it seemed that when my passage had been fully paid, and
one or two other necessary expenses met, I might still have my two
hundred pounds intact to carry with me to England.
Thus I felt that I was handsomely provided for; and, upon the whole, I
think the average person who has reached middle life, at all events,
would find it easy to regard with understanding tolerance the fact
that I was rather proud of what I had accomplished. It really was
something, all the attendant circumstances being taken into account.
But, perhaps, it is not always safe to trust too implicitly in the
genial old faith that Providence helps those who help themselves;
though the complementary theory, that Providence does not help those
who do not help themselves, may be pretty generally correct. Maybe I
was too complaisant. (If I have a superstition to-day, it is that a
jealous Nemesis keeps vengeful watch upon human complaisance.)
On a certain Thursday morning, and in a mood of some elation, I walked
into the bank to close my account. The amount was two hundred and
forty-seven pounds ten shillings. Of this some twenty-five pounds was
destined to complete the payment that morning of my passage money. The
cashier was able to furnish me with Bank of England notes for two
hundred pounds, and the balance, for convenience and ready-money, I
drew in Australian notes and gold. Never before having handled at one
time a greater sum than, say, five-and-twenty pounds, it was with a
sense of being a good deal of a capitalist that I buttoned my coat as
I emerged from the bank, and set out for the shipping-office. The sun
shone warmly. My arrangements were all completed. I was going home.
Yes, it was with something of an air, no doubt, that I took the
pavement, humming as I passed along the bright side of Pitt Street.
All my life I have had a fondness for byways. Main thoroughfares
between the two great arteries, Pitt and George Street, were at my
service; but I preferred a narrow alley which brings one to the back
premises of Messrs. Hunt and Carton's, the wholesale stationers.
Bearing to the left through that firm's stableyard, one passes through
a little arched opening which debouches upon Tinckton Street, whence
in twenty paces one reaches George Street at a point close to the
office for which I was bound.
I can see now the sleek-sided lorry horses in Hunt and Carton's yard, and
I recall precisely the odour of the place as I passed through it that
morning; the heavy, flat wads of blue-wrapped paper, and the fluttering
bits of straw; the stamp of a draught horse's foot on cobble-stones. I
saw the black, clean-cut shadow of the arched place. I turned half round
to note the cause of a soft sound behind me. And just then came the dull
roar of a detonation, in the same instant that a huge weight crashed upon
me, and I fell down, down, down into the very bowels of the earth....
* * * * *
'No actual danger, I think. Excuse me, nurse!'
Those were the first words I heard. The first I spoke, I believe,
were:
'I suppose the arch collapsed?'
'Ah! To be sure, yes. There was quite a collapse, wasn't there?' said
some one blandly. 'However, you're all right now. Just open your mouth
a little, please. That's right. Better? Ah! H'm! Yes, there's bound to
be pain in the head; but we'll soon have that a bit easier.'
After that, it seemed to me that I began to take some kind of warm
drink, and to talk almost at once. As a fact, I believe there was
another somnolent interval of an hour or so before I did actually
reach this stage of taking refreshment and asking questions. It was
then late evening, and I was in bed in the Sydney Hospital. There had
been no earthquake, nor yet even the collapse of an archway. Nothing
at all, in fact, except that I had been smitten over the head with an
iron bar. There had been two blows, I believe; and, if so, the second
must really have been a work of supererogation, for I was conscious
only of the one crash.
In one illuminating instant I recalled my visit to the bank, my two
hundred and forty-seven pounds ten shillings, my intended visit to the
shipping-office, the approaching end and climax of my work in Sydney
and Dursley--six years of it.
'Nurse,' I said, with sudden, low urgency, 'will you please see if my
pocket-book is in my coat?'
'Everything is taken out of patients' pockets and locked up for
safety,' she said.
'Well, will you please inquire what amount of money was taken from my
pockets, nurse. It's--it's rather important,' I told her.
The nurse urged the importance of my not thinking of business just
now; but after a few more words she went out, gave some one a message,
and, returning, said my matter would be seen to at once.
It seemed to me that a very long time passed. My head was full of a
tremendous ache. But my thoughts were active, and full of gloomy
foreboding. Just as I was about to make another appeal to the nurse,
the doctor came bustling down the ward with another man, a plain
clothes policeman, I thought, with recollection of sundry newspaper
reporting experiences. The surmise was correct. The doctor had a look
at my head--his fingers were furnished apparently with red-hot steel
prongs--and held my right wrist between his fingers. The police
officer sat down heavily beside the bed, drew out a shiny-covered
note-book, and began, in an astoundingly deep voice, to ask me
laboriously futile questions.
'Look here!' I said, after a few minutes, 'this is all very well, but
would you be kind enough to tell me what money was found in my
pockets?'
'Two sovereigns, one half sovereign, seven shillings in silver, and
tuppence in bronze,' said the sepulchral policeman, as though he
thought 'tuppence' was usually 'in' marble, or _lignum vitae_, or
something of the sort. 'Also one silver watch with leather guard, one
plated cigarette-case, and----'
'No pocket-book?' I interrupted despondently. The policeman brightened
at that.
'So there was a pocket-book? I thought so,' the brilliant creature
said. And after that I lost all interest in these bedside proceedings.
I referred the man to the _Chronicle_ office, the bank, and the
shipping-office, and requested as a special favour that Mr. Smith
should be sent for; also, on a journalistic afterthought, a reporter
from the _Chronicle_. The numbers of the bank-notes had been written
down. Oh yes, on the advice of the bank clerk, I had done this
carefully at the bank counter, and preserved the record scrupulously--in
the missing pocket-book.
The police--marvellous men--ascertained next morning that the notes
had been cashed at the Bank of New South Wales, in George Street,
within half an hour of the time at which I obtained them from the
savings bank. And that was the last I ever heard of them.
Twenty-four hours later I was called upon to identify an arrested
suspect who had been seen in the vestibule of the bank at the time of
my call. I did identify the poor wretch. He was the American reporter
who had been discharged from the _Chronicle_ staff. But nobody at the
Bank of New South Wales remembered ever having seen the man, and I
said at once that I could not possibly identify my assailant, not even
having known that any one had attacked me until I was told of it in
hospital.
The police appeared to regard me as a most unsatisfactory kind of
person, as I doubtless was from their point of view. But they had to
release the American, although, when arrested, he had two shining new
sovereigns in his ragged pockets, and was full of assorted alcoholic
liquors. Their theory was that in some way or another the American had
known of my movements and plans, and communicated these to a
professional 'strong arm' thief; that I had been shadowed to and from
the bank, and that I might possibly have escaped attack altogether but
for my addiction to byways.
Their theory did not greatly interest me. For the time the central
fact was all my mind seemed able to accommodate. My savings were gone,
my passage to England forfeited, my bank account closed, and--so my
hot eyes saw it--my career at an end.