From Squire to Squatter Part 18

"There is nothing like ambition. If we steer a steady course."

Of course there isn't. But staring into a china-shop window will do him little good. I do not believe he saw anything in that window however.

Only, on turning away from it, his foot goes splash into a pool of dirty water on the pavement, or rather on what ought to be a pavement. That boot is ruined for the day, and this reminds him that Sydney streets are _not_ paved with gold, but with very unromantic matter-of-fact mud.

Happy thought! he will dine.

The waiters are very polite, but not obsequious, and he makes a hearty meal, and feels more at home.

Shall he tip this waiter fellow? Is it the correct thing to tip waiters? Will the waiter think him green if he does, or green if he doesn't?

These questions, trifling though they may appear, really annoyed Archie; but he erred on the right side, and did tip the waiter--well too. And the waiter brightened up, and asked him if he would like to see a playbill.

Then this reminded Archie that he might as well call on some of the people to whom he had introductions. So he pulled out a small bundle of letters, and he asked the waiter where this, that, and t'other street was; and the waiter brought a map, and gave him so many hints, that when he found himself on the street again he did not feel half so foreign.

He had something to do now, something in view. Besides he had dined.

"Yes, he'd better drive," he said to himself, "it would look better."

He lifted a finger, and a hansom rattled along, and drew up by the kerb.

He had not expected to find cabs in Sydney. His card-case was handy, and his first letter also.

He might have taken a 'bus or tram. There were plenty pa.s.sing, and very like Glasgow 'buses they were too; from the John with the ribbons to the cad at the rear. But a hansom certainly looked more aristocratic.

Aristocratic? Yes. But were there any aristocrats in Sydney? Was there any real blue blood in the place? He had not answered those questions to his satisfaction, when the hansom stopped so suddenly that he fell forward.

"Wait," he said to the driver haughtily.

"Certainly, sir."

Archie did not observe, however, the grimace the Jehu made to another cabman, as he pointed over his shoulder with his thumb, else he would hardly have been pleased.

There was quite a business air about the office into which the young man ushered himself, but no one took much notice of him. If he had had an older face under that brand-new hat, they might have been more struck with his appearance.

"Ahem! Aw--!" Archie began.

"One minute, sir," said the clerk nearest him. "Fives in forty thousand? Fives in forty are eight--eight thousand."

The clerk advanced pen in mouth.

"Do you come from Jenkins's about those bills?"

"No, I come from England; and I've a letter of introduction to your _master_." Archie brought the last word out with a bang.

"Mr Berry isn't in. Will you leave a message?"

"No, thank you."

"As you please."

Archie was going off, when the clerk called after him, "Here is Mr Berry himself, sir."

A tall, brown-faced, elderly gentleman, with very white hair and pleasant smile. He took Archie into the office, bade him be seated, and slowly read the letter; then he approached the young man and shook hands. The hand felt like a dead fish's tail in Archie's, and somehow the smile had vanished.

"I'm really glad to see your father's son," he said. "Sorry though to hear that he has had a run of bad luck. Very bad luck it must be, too,"

he added, "to let you come out here."

"Indeed, sir; but I mean to make my for--that is, I want to make my living."

"Ay, young man, living's more like it; and I wish I could help you.

There's a wave of depression over this side of our little island at present, and I don't know that any office in town has a genteel situation to offer you."

Archie's soul-heat sank a degree or two.

"You think, sir, that--"

"I think that you would have done better at home. It would be cruel of me not to tell you the truth. Now I'll give you an example. We advertised for a clerk just a week since--"

"I wish I'd been here."

"My young friend, you wouldn't have had the ghost of a chance. We had five-and-thirty to pick and choose from, and we took the likeliest. I'm really sorry. If anything should turn up, where shall I communicate?"

Where should he communicate? And this was his father's best friend, from whom the too sanguine father expected Archie would have an invitation to dinner at once, and a general introduction to Sydney society.

"Oh, it is no great matter about communicating, Mr Berry; aw!--no matter at all! I can afford to wait a bit and look round me. I--aw!-- good morning, sir."

Away stalked the young Northumbrian, like a prince of the blood.

"A chip of the old block," muttered Mr Berry, as he resumed his desk work. "Poor lad, he'll have to come down a peg though."

The cabby sprang towards the young n.o.b.

"Where next, sir?"

"Grindlay's."

Archie was not more successful here, nor anywhere else.

But at the end of a week, during which time he had tried as hard as any young man had ever tried before in Sydney or any other city to find some genteel employment, he made a wise resolve; viz, to go into lodgings.

He found that living in a hotel, though very cheerful, made a terrible hole in his purse; so he brought himself "down a peg" by the simple process of "going up" nearer the sky.

Here is the explanation of this paradox. It was Archie's custom to spend his forenoons looking for something to do, and his evenings walking in the suburbs.

Poor, lonely lad, that never a soul in the city cared for, any more than if he had been a stray cat, he found it wearisome, heart-breaking work wandering about the narrow, twisting streets and getting civilly snubbed. He felt more of a gentleman when dining. Afterwards his tiredness quite left him, and hope swelled his heart once more. So out he would go and away--somewhere, anywhere; it did not matter so long as he could see woods, and water, and houses. Oh, such lovely suburban villas, with cool verandahs, round which flowering creepers twined, and lawns shaded by dark green waving banana trees, beneath which he could ofttimes hear the voices of merry children, or the tinkle of the light guitar. He would give reins to his fancy then, and imagine things--such sweet things!

Yes, he would own one of the biggest and most delightful of these mansions; he should keep fleet horses, a beautiful carriage, a boat--he must have a boat, or should it be a gondola? Yes, that would be nicer and newer. In this boat, when the moonlight silvered the water, he would glide over the bay, returning early to his happy home. His bonnie sister should be there, his brother Rupert--the student--his mother, and his hero, that honest, bluff, old father of his. What a dear, delightful dream! No wonder he did not care to return to the realities of his city life till long after the sun had set over the hills, and the stars were twinkling down brighter and lovelier far than those lights he had so admired the night his s.h.i.+p arrived.

He was returning slowly one evening and was close to the city, but in a rather lonely place, when he noticed something dark under the shade of a tree, and heard a girl's voice say:

"Dearie me! as missus says; but ain't I jolly tired just!"

"Who is that?" said Archie.