The Coo-ee Reciter Part 7

"Matilda, I am ready, with five thousand pounds a-year; Come out unto your Dobbins, love, and be his bride so dear;"

To which there sped the answer back that very self-same day, "As soon as I have packed my things, I'm coming straight away."

Matilda was an heiress of the old blue Bobbins' blood, Her ancestors owned land and beeves long years before the flood; One relative, 'tis said, indeed--a chemist, I'll engage-- Sold bottled Protoplasm in the prehistoric age.

Our Dobbins and our Jobbins, too, had loved the maid of old, But Bobbins _pere_ had snubbed them both for lack of needful gold; Though when the telegram arrived, "Five thousand pounds a-year!"

Pa winked a playful little wink--and said, "Be off, my dear."

The packing of her luggage was a most stupendous job, She'd the miscellaneous wardrobe of the highest sort of n.o.b, New trousseau, plate, and furniture, and presents from her friends, And c.o.c.kle's pills and raspberry jam, and various odds and ends.

There were eighty zinc-lined cases and portmanteaus full a score, Of band and bonnet boxes at least some fifty more, Of carpet-bags three dozen most plethorically crammed, With nigh-forgotten articles in one wild chaos jammed.

Our Venus had a transit out particularly quick, A glorious _transit mundi_, but without the usual _sic_ (k); Till one fine day she gazed upon the far-famed, Austral strand.

One eye upon her luggage, and one eye upon the land.

The vessel berthed beside the pier; Matilda's future lord, The "Honourable Dobbins," stepped jauntily on board; He clasped the maiden to his breast, nor heeded that close by The melancholy Jobbins stood with sad reproachful eye.

"Come, come, my love!" says Dobbins, "let's get your things ash.o.r.e; I have a cab in waiting here to take them to my store."

"A cab!" cried she--"twice twenty cabs would not for me suffice; Behold my things!" He started, as though stung by c.o.c.katrice.

"That lofty mountain yonder, which high its head erects, That Alp of packing cases--are those, dear, your effects?"

"Of course they are, beloved, for keeping house with _you_, Enough to furnish us complete, and everything _quite new!_"

He staggered as if hearing news of pestilence or dearth, Then gasped in low and anxious tones, "And what's the whole lot worth?"

She thought that his emotion spoke of joy that knew no bounds, And whispered gaily in his ear, "Some forty thousand pounds!"

He bit his lips, he ground his teeth, he tore out hunks of hair, He looked the full embodiment of desperate despair; Then with a shriek of agony, the hideous truth found vent, "There's _ad valorem_ on the lot of ninety-five per cent.!

"My new amended Tariff comes in force this very day, I little dreamt that you and I should be the first to pay; Besides, I haven't got the cas.h.!.+ oh dear, how bad I feel!"

The maiden smiled a scornful smile and turned upon her heel.

The miserable Dobbins gave a second piercing shriek, Then leaped into the briny flood, and stayed there for a week; Though Jobbins tried to find him hard, but failed, with these remarks, "He always _was_ too deep for me--besides, there might be sharks."

The very night of Dobbins' loss, the Ministry went out, The Jobbins' party took their place 'midst many a ringing shout; And of our Jobbins in a trice, their Treasurer they made.

Because, as everybody knew, he gloried in Free Trade.

He took the dues off everything, from thimbles up to tanks, And pa.s.sed Miss Bobbins' goods himself, and won that virgin's thanks; And what is more, he won her hand, her chattels and her heart, And she is Mrs. Jobbins now, till death them twain doth part.

As Dobbins to import his love had spared nor cash nor pains-- They raised a handsome monument above his cold remains; The carved inscription to this day is there his tale to tell, "He _did_ his duties--and himself--not wisely but too well."

GARNET WALCH.

_THE LION'S CUBS._

PATRIOTIC SONG AND CHORUS.

Australia's sons are we, And the freest of the free, But Love enchains us still with fetters strong To the dear old land at Home, Far across the rolling foam-- The little isle to which our hearts belong.

It shall always be our boast, Our b.u.mper-honoured toast, That, should Britain bid us help her, we'll obey; Then, if e'er the call is made, And Old England needs our aid, These are the words Australia's sons will say--

There is not a strong right hand, Throughout this Southern land, But will draw a sword in dear old England's cause; Our numbers may be few, But we've loyal hearts and true, And the Lion's cubs have got the Lion's claws.

From our ocean-guarded strand, O'er the sunny plains inland, To the cloud-kissed mountain summits faint and far, Australians bred and born, Behold yon banner torn, And greet it with a l.u.s.ty-lunged hurrah!

'Tis the brave old Union Jack, That nothing can beat back-- Ever waving where the brunt of battle lies; For each frayed and faded thread Britain counts a hero dead, Who died to gain the liberties we prize.

Then there's not, &c.

The ever-honoured name On the bright bead-roll of Fame, That our fathers held through all the changing Past, In it we claim our share, And by Saint George we swear, We can keep that name untarnished to the last; Then, when the hour arrives, We will give our very lives For the dearest land of all the lands on earth, And, foremost in the fray, Show Britain's foes the way Australia's sons can prove their British birth.

Yes, there's not, &c.

Sons of the South, unite In federated might, The Champions of your Country and your Queen; From New Zealand's glacier throne To the burning Torrid Zone, We'll prove that welded steel is tough and keen.

The wide world shall be shown That we mean to hold our own In the home of our adoption, free and fair; And if the Lion needs, He shall see, by doughty deeds, How his Austral cubs can guard their father's lair.

For there's not, &c.

GARNET WALCH.

_THE LITTLE d.u.c.h.eSS._

BY ETHEL TURNER.

"The tale is as old as the Eden tree, And new as the new-cut tooth."

He was the clerk of the cash tramway, and when the rolling b.a.l.l.s gave him a moment's leisure, used to look down from his high perch at the big shop beneath his feet, and, in his slow, quiet style, study the ways of the numberless a.s.sistants whose life-books thus opened to him so many of their pages.

Lately there had come to the place a slight, grey-eyed girl, who wore her black dress with such grace, and held her small head with such dignity, that he whimsically had named her to himself "The Little d.u.c.h.ess." He liked to look down and catch a glint of her hair's suns.h.i.+ne when his brain was dulled with calculating change, and his fingers ached with shutting cash-b.a.l.l.s and dispatching them on their journeys. And he used to wonder greatly how any customer could hesitate to buy silks and satins when their l.u.s.tre and sheen were displayed by her slim little fingers and the quality descanted on with so persuasive a smile. There were handsomer girls in the shop, girls with finer figures and better features; but, to the boy in his mid-air cage, there was none with the nameless dainty charms that made the little d.u.c.h.ess so lovable.

For, of course, he did love her. In less than two months he had begun to watch for her cash-ball with a trembling eagerness, to smooth out and stroke gently the bill her fingers had written, and to wrap it and its change up again with a careful tenderness that no one else's change and bill received. He had spoken to her half-a-dozen times in all; twice at the door on leaving--weather remarks, to which she had responded graciously; once or twice about bills that she had come to rectify at the desk, and once he had had the great good fortune to find and return a handkerchief she had dropped. Such a pretty, ridiculous atom of muslin it was, with a fanciful "Nellie" taking up one quarter, and some delicate scent lending such subtle fascination that it was a real wrench for the lad to take the handkerchief from his breast-pocket and proffer it to her.

So great a wrench, indeed, that he profferred his love, too, humbly, but fervently, and received a very wondering look from the grey eyes, a badly-concealed smile, a "Thank you" for the handkerchief, and a "No, thank you" for the love.

He had kissed her, though, and that was some consolation afterwards to his sore spirit, kissed her right upon the sweet, scarlet lips which had said "No" so decidedly, and then, bold no longer, had fled the shelter of the friendly packing-cases, and beaten a retreat to his desk aloft.

That was nearly a fortnight ago; not once since had she spoken to him, and to-day he was feeling desperate.

It had been a very busy morning, and he had found hardly a second to raise his eyes from his work. The one time he had looked down she had been busy with a customer--a girl prettily dressed and golden-headed like herself. That had been at about ten o'clock. Before twelve her cash-box, with the notch upon it that his penknife had made, rolled down its line, and he opened it as he had opened it twenty times that morning; but this time it bore his fate. With the bill was a little twisted note, on which "John Walters, private," was written, and the boy's very heart leaped at the sight. Down below, customers wearily waited for change, and anxiously watched for their own particular ball while the _deus ex machina_ read again and again, with eager eyes: "Please will you meet me at lunch-time in the Strand? Do, if you can. I am in trouble. You said you loved me." Then, as he began mechanically to manipulate the waiting b.a.l.l.s, he looked down to the accustomed place of the little d.u.c.h.ess. She was pale, he saw, and her lips trembled oddly now and again. There was a frightened look in her grey eyes, and once or twice he thought he noticed a sparkle as of tears.

At lunch-time he actually tore through the shop and away down to the appointed place. She was there--still pale, still nervous and fluttering.

"Let us go to the Gardens. It's quieter," he said, putting a great restraint upon himself; then, when at last they were within the gates, "G.o.d bless you for this, Nellie."