Such Is Life

by Tom Collins

  “Parse that,” said I, listlessly.

  “Parse your granny!” he retorted. “I don’t believe you could parse it yourself, as clever as you think you are. Beggar conceited-ness; beggar everything. I wish I was about forty.”

  “And know as much as you do now?” I barely articulated.

  “Yes—and know as much as I do now,” he repeated doggedly. “In fact, I never met anyone that knows as much as I do; but people won’t pay any attention to a young fellow, no matter if he was Solomon. That Martin wants a lift under the ear.”

  “Does he?” I asked faintly. “I didn’t hear him express the desire.”

  “Gosh! you’ve been on the turkey; you’ll be cutting yourself some of these times. I wish Toby was back with the mail. I hope he’ll forget to ask for your letters.”

  “Now the Lord lighten thee; thou art a great fool,” I sighed. “What time does Toby generally get back?”

  “Any time between two in the afternoon and sunrise next morning, according to the state of the mailman’s horses. Beggar such a life as this. At it, early and late; working through accounts, and serving-out rations, and one thing or another; and no more chance of distinguishing myself than if I was in jail. I can’t stand it much longer, and what’s more, I won’t. I wish the mail was in. I’ve got a presentiment of something good this time. If you don’t speculate, you won’t accumulate, as the saying is; and if a man can’t make a rise by some sort of gambling, he may as well lie down and die, straight-off. But the first rise is the difficulty; and, of course, you’ve got to take the risk.”

  “What do you do with the rise when you get it?” I asked, drowsily.

  “Why, distinguish yourself, of course—what else? There’s a great future sticking out for a fellow, if he’s got his head screwed on right.”

  “So there is. Well, what shall it be? Mechanics? Fine opening for an inventive genius there—but you must be up and doing, as the poet says.”

  “You had all the chances when you were my age,” replied Moriarty bitterly. “I’m too late arriving. Everything’s invented now.”

  “True,” I observed. “I hadn’t thought of that objection. Then why not take up some interesting study, and work it out from post to finish? Political Economy, for instance?”

  “Anybody could do that,” replied the young fellow contemptuously. “I want to distinguish myself.”

  “Then I’ll tell you what you’ll do, Moriarty. Take a narrow branch of some scientific study, and restrict yourself to that. Say you devote your life to some special divisoin of the Formicœ?”

  “The what?”

  “Formicœ. The name is plural. It embraces all the different species of ants.”

  “Why, there’s only about three species of ants altogether; and there’s nothing to learn about them except that they make different kinds of hills, and give different kinds of bites. That sort of study would about suit you. Fat lot of distinction a person could get out of ants.”

  “Still, every avenue to distinction is not closed,” I urged. “We’re knocking at the gates of Futurity for the Australian pioneer of poetry—fiction—philosophy—what not? You’ve got all the working plant ready in your office. There you are!”

  “No use, Collins,” he replied hopelessly. “I’ve got the talent, right enough, but I haven’t got the patience. In fact, I’m too dash lazy.”

  “Charge it on the swimming-hole, brother,” I sighed.

  “No; I can’t very well do that I haven’t been there for the last month. I’d go to-night if I had a horse.”

  “Heavens above!” I murmured; “what would he be like if he was clean? He would distinguish himself in one direction. The material is there,”

  “Jealousy, jealousy,” replied Moriarty disgustedly. “Never mind. I’ll make things hum yet. Do you know—I stand to win twenty-four notes on the regatta, besides my chance of the station sweep on the big Flemington, let alone private bets. We’ll get news of both events to-day; and I have a presentiment of something good. Gosh! I wish Toby was here!’”

  “And how much do you stand to lose, if your mozzle is out?” I asked. “By-the-way, didn’t I incidentally hear that you were playing cards all last Sunday?”

  “I don’t believe that has anything to do with it,” replied Moriarty, in an altered tone. “But, to tell you the truth, I daren’t count up how much I’ll lose if things go crooked. I’ve plunged too heavy—there’s no doubt about that—but I did it with the best intention. I made sure of scooping; and, for that matter, I make sure of it still. But whatever you do, don’t begin to preach about the evils of gambling—not now, Collins; not till after we get news of these events. Doesn’t everybody gamble, from the Governor downward—bar you, and a couple or three more sanctimonious old hypocrites, with one foot in the grave, and the other in the devil’s mouth? Why, Nosey Alf is the only fellow on this station that has no interest in the sweep, besides no end of private bets.”

  “Isn’t that Toby?” I asked, indicating a horseman, half-a-mile away.

  “Gosh, yes!” replied Moriarty nervously. “I wonder what brings him from that direction? Come, Collins—will you give me five to one he has letters for you? I’ll take it at that.”

  “Indeed you won’t, sonny.”

  “Well, let’s have some wager before he gets any nearer,” persisted Moriarty, with an unpleasant laugh. The suspense was beginning to tell upon a mind not originally cast in the Stoic mould. So much so, that I felt inclined to lose a trifle to him, even as a tee-totaller would administer a nip to a man who was beginning to see tilings. “Come!” he continued recklessly; “I’ll give you two to one he has letters for you; twenty to one he has letters for the station”—And so he gabbled on, whilst, drifting into my Hamlet-mood, I charted the poor fellow’s mind for my own edification.

  “Hold on, Moriarty,” I interrupted, recalling myself. “Let’s hear that fifty-to-one offer again. Am I to understand that if Toby has letters for the station and none for me, you win; if he has letters for me and none for the station, I win; and, failing the fulfilment of either double, the wager is off?”

  “That’s it. Are you on?”

  “Make it a hundred to one.”

  “Done! at a hundred to one—in what?”

  “Half-sovereigns,” I replied, feeling for the purse which, vulgar as it is, bushmen even of aristocratic lineage are compelled to carry. I placed the little coin—about one-tenth of my total wealth—in Moriarty’s hand. He shrank from the touch.

  “What do you mean?” he asked petulantly. “I mightn’t win it, after all. Don’t be more disagreeable than you can help.”

  “You intend to get it without giving an equivalent—don’t you?You know it’s yours. Aren’t you betting on a certainty? Lay it on the window-sill, if you like, and pick it up when you can read your title clear. If you don’t speculate, you won’t accumulate; and I suppose you’ve no objection to looking into the morality of your speculation”—

  I had cleared my throat for a disquisition which would have been intolerable to the unprincipled reader, when a very curious thing arrested the attention both of Moriarty and myself—the strangest coincidence, perhaps, within the personal experience of either of us—a conjuncture, in fact, which for a moment threw us both staggering back on the theology of childhood. At the present time, I feel too meek to attempt any unravelment, and too haughty to offer any apology other than that such is life.

  The half-caste had cantered up to the horse-paddock gate, had dismounted, had divested his horse of the saddle and bridle, and had given the animal a slap with the latter. Now he was depositing those equipments in the shed. Now he approached us, taking two letters and a newspaper from the tail-pocket of what had once been an expensive dress-coat of Montgomery’s.

  “Yours, Collins,” said he. “Don’t say I never gave you nothing. Nix for you, Mr. (adj.) Moriarty.”

  “You’re very laconic,” observed the storekeeper in a hollow voice, yet eyeing the prince sternly; �
��very laconic, indeed, I must say. If I was you, I wouldn’t be quite so laconic. How the (sheol) comes it that you didn’t fetch the mail?”

  “Needn’t look in that paper for the Flemington, Collins,” said the heir-apparent; “she’s a day too soon. I took a squint at her, comin’ along.”

  “I was asking how the (adj. sheol) you managed to come without the mail?” repeated Moriarty, with dignity.

  “I heard you, right enough. I ain’t deaf. Well, I come on a moke. Think I padded it? Fact was, Moriarty, I met Magomery at Bailey’s Tank, an’ he told me go like blazes to Scandalous Sandy’s hut, on Nalrooka, an’ tell him a lot o’ his sheep was boxed with ours in the Boree Paddick. ‘I’ll fetch the mail home myself,’ says he. There now.”

  “And why didn’t you go to Scandalous Sandy’s?” nagged Moriarty.

  “Well, considerin’ you’re boss o’ this station, an’ my bit o’ filthy lucre comes out o’ your pocket, I got great pleasure informin’ you I met ole Gladstone, comin’ to tell us the same yarn. Anything else you want to know?”

  “Did you hear which crew won the regatta?” asked Moriarty, almost civilly.

  “Sydney,” replied the prince. “Think you Port Phillipers could lick us?”

  “That’s a lie!” exclaimed Moriarty, catching his breath.

  “Right. It’s a lie, if you like. I got no stuff on it. See what Collins’s paper says. An’ now I feel like as if I could do a bit o’ dinner—unless you got any objections?”

  He stalked away toward the hut, whilst I opened what turned out to be a love-letter—evidently intended for some other member of our diffusive clan, for I could make neither head nor tail of it; nothing, indeed, but heart, and such heart as it has never been my luck to capture. Meanwhile, Moriarty had cut the string of the newspaper, and was running his eye over its columns.

  “My mozzle is out, Collins,” said he, with an effort. “I’ll never clear myself—never in the creation of cats. It’s all up!”

  “Yes; you suffer by comparison with the sanctimonious old hypocrites now,” I replied, in a fatherly tone, as I took the half-sovereign from the window-sill. “Feel something like an overproof idiot—don’t you? We’ll talk about that presently. But see what I’ve got here.”

  My second letter ran:—

  K3769

  No. 256473

  Central Office of Unconsidered Trifles,

  Sydney, February 1, 1884.

  Mr. T. Collins.

  Sir,—I am directed to inform you that the Deputy-Commissioner purposes visiting Nyngan on the 17th prox. You are required to attend the Office of the Department in that township at 11 a.m. on the day above mentioned, to furnish any information which he may require.

  I am, Sir,

  Ynnnnnnnnnnly

  MMMnnynnlnny

  pro Assistant-Under-Secretary.

  “Not a whisper about the M form,” I remarked. “Perhaps it’s in your mail. No odds. Montgomery can complete it, and send it on, just as well as if I hadn’t been near the place at all. But here’s something like two hundred and thirty miles to be done in seven days—and the country in such a state. This is the balsam that the usuring senate pours into captains’ wounds. Never mind. The time is only too near, when I’ll sit in my sumptuous office, retaliating all this on some future Deputy-Assistant-Sub-Inspector, And, in the meantime, this long dusty ride will make a man of me once more. I must start at once; and I could do with some money. Moriarty, you’re owing me fifty notes.”

  “I know I am,” replied the storekeeper, in a quivering voice. He was as punctiliously honourable in some ways as he was perfidious in others—being amiably asinine in each extreme.

  “Now, including your little liability to me, how much are you out, even if the Flemington gamble goes in your favour?” I asked.

  “Only sixty-eight notes,” he faltered. “I’ll clear it, right enough, if I’m not rushed, and if I don’t get the sack off the station.”

  “But, by every rule of analogy, you’re also badly left on the Flemington,” I continued serenely. “How much does that leave you out?”

  “Ninety-seven notes, and my rifle,” he replied, steadying his voice by an effort. “Mad—mad—mad! I wish I were dead!”

  “Will you swear off gambling altogether till my claim is discharged? On that condition, I can extend the time—say to the Greek Kalends.”

  “If you think I could raise the money by that time,” replied the poor fellow dubiously. “Anyway, I give you my solemn promise. But, I say,” he continued, with seeming irrelevance—“when do you expect promotion?”

  “At any moment. My presentiments, being based on the deepest inductions of science, and the subtlest intuitions of the higher philosophy, are a trifle more trustworthy than yours; and I have a presentiment that the thing is impending. But you needn’t congratulate me yet. Think about yourself.”

  “That’s just what I’m doing. If you tell her about this wager, I’ll suicide, or clear.”

  “Well, upon my word! Do you think I’d condescend to undermine you, you storekeeper? Look out for Martin; never mind me.”

  “I don’t mean her,” mumbled the young fool; “I mean Mrs. Beaudesart. You’re going to marry her when you get your promotion—ain’t you?”

  There was such evident sincerity in his tone that I maintained a stern and stony silence, whilst his eyes met mine with a doubtful, deprecating look; then he remarked doggedly,

  “Well, that’s what she told Mrs. Montgomery, last Sunday; and she said it seriously. Miss King was present at the time; and she told Butler, and Mooney, and me, across the gate of the flower-garden, the same evening. Mrs. Beaudesart takes it for granted, and so does everybody else. She says she accepted you some time ago.”

  “You lying dog!” I remarked wearily.

  “I hope I may never stir alive off this seat if I’m not telling you the exact truth. Ask Mooney or Butler.”

  “If I do sleep, would all my wealth would wake me,” I murmured, half-unconsciously.

  “You don’t want to marry her, then, after all?”

  “How long do you suppose I would last?”

  “Well, don’t marry her.”

  “Does it occur to you,” I asked, with some bitterness, “that there are some things a person can do, and some things he can’t do? If the head of my Department orders me to Nyngan, I can reply by letter, telling him to mind his own business, and not concern himself about me; but if Mrs. Beaudesart assumes—if she merely takes for granted—that I’m going to marry her, I must do it. to keep her in countenance. How, in the fiend’s name, can I slink out of it, now that I’m accepted? Can I tell her I’ve examined my heart, and I find I can only love her as a sister? Now, wouldn’t that sound well? No, no; I’m a done man. Of course, she had no business to accept me unawares; but as she has done so, I must help her to keep up the grisly fraud of feminine reluctance; for, as the abbot sings, so must the sacristan respond. It is kismet. This is how all these unaccountable marriages are brought about; though, to be sure, I have the dubious satisfaction of knowing that the enterprise brings me a good many days’ march nearer home.”

  The expression of heavenly beatitude on Moriarty’s face goaded my mind to activity. Sweeping, with one glance, the whole horizon of expediency and possibility, I caught sight of the idea glanced at in a former page, and suggested, you will remember, by my dialogue with Ida.

  “By the way, Moriarty,” said I; “respecting that trifling debt of honour—there’s another condition that I didn’t think of. As a sort of payment on account, you must privately and insidiously circulate a very grave scandal for me.”

  “Well, I won’t!” exclaimed the young fellow, after a moment’s pause. “I don’t mind telling a lie when I’m driven to it; but a woman’s a woman. Do your own dirty work!”

  “Then, by Jove, I’ll post you!”

  If anyone had used this threat to me, I would have asked how the posting was usually done, and what results might be expected to follow
; but Moriarty’s lip quivered under the threat.

  “Do your worst,” said he, swallowing the lump in his throat.

  “You may depend on that,” I replied quietly. “However, the scandal was only about myself.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “I’ll enlighten you. I was going to ask you to take Nelson, or Mooney, or both of them, into your confidence. Then you would arrange that Mrs. Beaudesart should overhear you discussing some horrible scandal in connection with me. And mind, she would have to believe it, or you would be a ruined man for the rest of your life—you would be a defaulting gambler, a byword, a hissing, an astonishment, with the curse of Cain upon your brow. Then she would spurn me with contumely, and I would be my own man again. I would be in sanctuary, so to speak; inviolable by reason of my disgrace. Metaphorically, you could lay the blast, and fire it at your leisure, in my absence. I would leave all details to your own judgment, only holding you responsible for quality of fuse, and quantity of powder. I’d stand the explosion.”

  “I’m on!” exclaimed Moriarty, brightening up. “Gosh! I’ll give you a character to rights! Mind, it’ll make you look small.”

  “The smaller the better. I have a small aperture to crawl through, and no other means of escape. Of course, being innocent all the time, the scandal won’t even fizz on my inner consciousness. In fact, I’ll feel myself taking a rise out of everyone that believes the yarn; and I’ll live it down in good time. Now lay your plans carefully, Moriarty, and make a clean job of it, for your own sake.”

  This being definitely settled, I soon demonstrated to the young fellow that his case, as regarded other liabilities, was by no means desperate; and his elastic temperament asserted itself at once. I may add, in passing, that he has never broken his anti-gambling pledge; also, that my £50 remains unpaid to this day.

  “Now I must go and catch my horses,” said I. “Can you come?”

  “Hold on,” replied Moriarty; “here comes Toby; we’ll send him.”