III
Dismissed, they bundled into the street.
“Outcasts on the face value of us!” said Jack.
Tom stopped to roar with laughter, and bumped into a pedestrian.
“Hold hard! Keep a hand on the reins, can’t yon?” exclaimed the individual, pushing Tom off.
Tom looked at him. It was Jimmie Short, another sort of cousin.
“Stow it, Jimmie. Don’t y’ know me?”
Jimmie took him firmly by the coat lapels and pulled him into the gutter.
“’f course I know ye,” said Jimmie in a conciliatory tone, as to a drunk. “Meet me in half an hour at the Miners’ Refuge, eh? Three steps and a lurch and there y’ are!—Come, matey”—this to Jack—“take hold of y’ pal’s arm. See ye later.”
Tom was weak with laughter at Jimmie’s benevolent attitude. They were not recognised at all, as they lurched across the road.
They had a drink, and strolled down the long principal street of Perth, looking in at the windows of all the shops, and in spite of the fact that they had no money, buying each a silk handkerchief and a cake of scented soap. The excitement of this over, they rolled away to the riverside, to the ferry. Then again back into the town.
At the corner of the Freemason’s Hotel they saw Aunt Matilda and Mary; Aunt Matilda huge in a tight-fitting, ruched dress of dark purple stuff, and Mary in a black-and-white striped dress with a tight bodice and tight sleeves with a little puff at the top, and a long skirt very full behind. She wore also a little black hat with a wing. And Jack, with a wickedness brought with him out of the North-West, would have liked to rip these stereotyped clothes and corsets off her, and make her walk down Hay Street in puris naturalibus. She went so trim and exact behind the huge Mrs. Watson. It would have been good to unsheathe her.
“Hello!” cried Tom. “There’s Aunt Matilda. We’ve struck it rich.”
The two young blackguards followed slowly after the two women, close behind them. Mary carried a book, and was evidently making for the little bookshop that had a lending library of newish books.
“Well, Mary, while you go in there I’ll go and see if the chemist can’t give me something for my breathing, for its awful!” said Mrs. Watson, standing and puffing before the bookshop.
“Shall I come for you or you for me?” asked Mary.
“I’ll sit and wait for you in Mr. Pusey’s,” panted Aunt Matilda, and she sailed forward again, after having glanced suspiciously backward at the two ne’er-do-wells who were hesitating a few yards away.
Mary, with her black hair in a huge bun, her hat with a wing held on by steel pins, was gazing contemplatively into the window of the bookshop, at the newest book. The Book-lovers Latest! said a cardboard announcement.
“Can you help a poor chap, Miss?” said Tom, dropping his head and edging near.
Mary started, looked frightened, glanced at the first tramp and then at the second, in agitation, began to fumble for her purse, and dropped her book, spilling the loose leaves.
Jack at once began to gather up the scattered pages of the book: an Anthony Trollope novel. Mary, with black kid-gloved fingers, was fumbling in her purse for a penny. Tom peeped into the purse.
“Lend us the half-a-quid, Mary,” he said.
She looked at his face, and a slow smile of amusement dawned in her eyes.
“I should never have known you!” she said.
Then as Jack rose, shoving the leaves together in the book, she looked into his blue eyes with her brown, queer shining eyes.
She held out her hand to him without saying a word, only looked into his eyes with a look of shining meaning. Which made him grin sardonically inside himself. He shook hands with her silently.
“You look something like you did after you’d been fighting with Easu Ellis,” she said. “When are you going to Wandoo?
“Tomorrow, I should think,” said Tom. “Everybody O.K. down there?”
“Oh I think so!” said Mary nervously.
“What do you men want?” came a loud, panting voice. Aunt Matilda sailing up, purple in the face.
“Lend us half-a-quid, Mary,” murmured Tom, and hastily she handed it over. Jack had already commenced to beat a retreat. Tom sloped away as the large lady loomed near.
“Beggars!” she panted. “Are they begging?—How much—how much did you give him? The disgraceful——!”
“He made me give him half-a-sovereign, Aunt.”
Mrs. Watson had to stagger into the shop for a chair.
The boys had a drink, and set off to the warehouse to look up Jack’s box, in which were his white shirts and other forgotten garments.
Back in town, Jack felt a slow, sinister sense of oppression coming over him, a sort of fear, as if he were not really free, as if something bad were going to happen to him.
“How am I going to get dressed to dine with Old George tonight?” grumbled the still-careless Tom, who was again becoming tipsy. “Wherever am I goin’ to get a suit to sport?”
“Oh, some of yer relations ’ll fix you up.”
Jack had an undefinable, uncomfortable feeling that he might suddenly come upon Monica, and she might see him in this state. He wouldn’t like the way she’d look at him. No, he wouldn’t be looked at like that, not for a hundred ponies.
They turned their backs on the beautiful River, with its Mount Eliza headland and wide sweeps and curves twinkling in the sun, and they walked up William Street looking for an adventure.
A man whom they knew from the north, in filthy denims, came out of a boot-shop and hailed them.
“Come an’ stop one on me, maties.”
“Righto! But where’s Lukey? He stood us one this morning. Seen him?”
“Yes, I seen him.—But ’arf a mo’!”
Scottie turned into the pawnbroker’s, under the three balls, and the boys followed.
“If y’ sees what y’ didn’t oughta see, keep y’ mouth shut.”
“As a dead crab,” assented Jack.
“Now then, Unde! What’ll y’ advance on that pair o’ bran new boots I’ve just bought?”
“Two bob.”
“Glory be. An’ I just give twenty for ’em. Ne’ mind, gimme th’ ticket.”
This transaction concluded, Jack wondered what he could pawn. He pulled out a front tooth, beautifully set in a gold plate. It had been a parting finish to his colonial outfit, the original tooth having been lost in a football scrum.
“Father Abraham,” he said, holding up the tooth, “I’m a gentleman whether I look it or not. So is my friend this gentleman. He needs a dress suit for tonight, though you wouldn’t believe it. He needs a first-class well-fitting dress suit for this evening.”
“I have first-class latest fashion gents’ clothes upstairs. But a suit like that is worth five pound to me.”
“Let me try the jacket on.”
Abraham was doubtful. But at length Tom was hustled shamefacedly into a rather large tail-coat. It looked awful, but Jack said it would do. The man wouldn’t take a cent less than two quid deposit: and ten bob for the loan of the suit. The boys said they would call later.
“What’ll you give me on this tooth?” asked Jack. “There’s not a more expensive tooth in Western Australia.”
“I’ll lend y’ five bob on that, pecos y’ amuth me.”
“And well come in later for the dress suit. All right, Aaron. Hang on to that tooth, it’s irreplaceable. Treat it like a jewel. Give me the five bob and the ticket.”
In the Miners’ Refuge Jack flung himself down on a bench beside an individual who looked tidy but smelt strongly of rum, and asked:
“Say, mate, where can y’ get a wash an’ a brush-up for two?—local?”
The fellow got up and lurched surlily to the counter, refusing to answer.
Jack sat on, while Tom drank beer, and a heavy depression crept over his spirit. He had been hobnobbing with riff-raff so long, it had almost become second nature. But now a sense of disgust and impending disaster came over him. He would soon have to make an angry effort, and get out. He was becoming angry with Tom, for sitting there so sloppily soaking beer, when he knew his head was weak.
They began to eat sandwiches, hungrily standing at the bar. Another slipshod waster, eyeing the denim man as if he were a fish, sidled over to him and muttered.
“Sorry,” said Scottie with a mournful expression, pulling out the pawn-ticket, “I’ve just had to pawn me boots. Can’t be done.”
Jack grinned. The waster then came sloping over to him.
“Y’ axed me mate a civil question just now, lad, an’ I’d ’ave answered it for ’im, but I just spotted a racin’ pal o’ mine an’ was onter him ter get a tip he’d promised—a dead cert f’ Belmont tomorrer. Y’ might ha’ seen him lettin’ me inter th’ know,” he breathed. “Hev’ a drink, lad!”
“Thanks!” said Jack. “This is my mate.—I’ll take the shout, an’ one back, an’ then we must be off. Going up country tomorrer morning.”
This seemed to push the man’s mind on quicker.
“Just from up North, aren’t ye? Easy place to knock up a cheque. How’d y’ like to double a fiver?”
“O.K.,” said Tom.
“Well here’s a dead cert. Take it from me, and don’t let it past yer. I got it from a racin’ pal wot’s in the know. Not straight for the punters, maybe—but straight as a die f’r me ’n my pals. Double y’ money? Not ’arf! Multiply it by ten. ‘S a dead cert.”
“Name?”
“Not so quick. Not in ’ere. Come outside, ’n I’ll whisper it to y’.”
Jack paid for the drinks, and winking warningly to Tom, followed the man outside.
“The name o’ the ’oss,” the fellow said—“But tell yer wot, I’ll put ye on the divvy with a book I know—or y’ c’n come wi’ me. He keeps a paper-shop in Hay Street.”
“We don’t know the name of the horse yet.”
“Comin’ from up North you don’t know the name o’ none of ’em, do yer? He’s a rank outsider. Y’ oughter get twenties on ’im.”
“We’ve only got a quid atween us,” said Tom.
“Well, that means a safe forty—after th’ race.”
“Bob on!” said Tom. “Where’s the bookshop?”
“How can we go in an’ back a hoss without knowin’ his name?” said Jack.
“Oh I’ll tip it y’ in ’ere.”
They entered a small paper-shop, and the man said to the fellow behind the counter:
“These two gents’s pals o’ mine.—How much did y’ say y’d lay, mates?”
“Out with the name o’ th’ hoss first,” said Tom confidentially.
“This shop’s changed hands lately,” said the fat fellow behind the counter. “I don’t make books. Got no licence.”
Didn’t that look straight? But the boys were no greenhorns. They walked out of the shop again.
In the road the stranger said:
“The name o’ th’ ’oss is Double Bee. If y’ll give me th’ money I’ll run upstairs ’ere t’ old Josh—everyone knows him for a sound book.”
“The name o’ th’ hoss,” said Jack, “is Boots-two-Bob. An’ a more cramblin’ set o’ lies I never heard. Get outter this, or I’ll knock y’ head off.”
The fellow went off with a yellow look.
“Gosh!” said Tom. “We’re back home right enough, what?”
“Bon soir, as Frenchy used to say?”
Rolling a little drearily along, they saw Jimmie Short standing on the pavement watching them.
“Hello, mates!” he said. “Still going strong?”
“Fireproof!” said Tom.
“Remember barging into me this morning? And my best girl was just coming round the corner with her Ma! Had to mind my company, eh, boys. But come an’ have a drink now.—I seem to have seen you before to-day, haven’t I? Where was it?”
“Don’t try and think,” said Tom. “Y’ might do us out of a pony.”
“Righto! old golddust! Step over on to the Bar-parlour mat.”
“I’m stepping,” said Tom. “’N I’m not drunk.”
“No, he’s not,” said Jack.
“You bet he’s not,” said Jimmie. He was eyeing them curiously as if his memory pricked him.
“My name,” said Tom, “is Ned Kelly. And if yours isn’t Jimmie Miller, what is it?”
“Why, it’s Short.—Well, I give it up. I can’t seem to lay my finger on you, Kelly.”
Tom roared with laughter.
“What time is it?” he asked.
“Ten past twelve.”
“We’ve won a pony off Old George!” said the delighted Tom. “I’m Tom Ellis and he’s Jack Grant. Now do you know us, Jimmie?”
Jack was glad to get washed and barbered and dressed. After all, he was sick of wasters and roughs. They were stupider than respectable people, and much more offensive physically and morally. To hell with them all. He wouldn’t care if some tyrant would up and extirpate the breed.
Anyhow he stepped clean out of their company.