The Tale of Timber Town Part 43

"You young imp, anty up."

Jake produced the key from his pocket. "D'you suppose I label it and put it in the winder?"

"Put this gold away--there's 111 ounces. I'll bring some more next time I come. Now." He lifted the jug, and drank. When he set it down again, it was half empty. "That's what I call a moment of bliss. No one who hasn't spent a month in the bush knows what a thirst really is; he ain't got no conception what beer means. Now, what's in the basket?" He lifted the white napkin that covered his supper. "Ham!" A beautific smile illumined his face. "Ham, pink and white and succulent, cut in thin slices by fair hands. Delicious! And what's this? Oyster patties, cold certainly, but altogether lovely. New bread, cheese, apple turn-over!

Couldn't be better. The order of the menu is; first, entrees--that means oysters--next, ham, followed by sweets, and topped off with a morsel of cheese. Stand by and watch me eat--a man that has suffered semi-starvation for nearly a month."

Jake lit a cigarette, an indulgence with which in these days of worry and stress he propitiated his overwrought nerves. He drew in the smoke with all the relish of a connoisseur, and expelled it through his nostrils.

"Is this gold the result of six weeks' work?" he asked.

"No, barely one week's," answered Tresco, his mouth full of ham and new bread.

"Crikey!" Jake inhaled more cigarette smoke. "'Seems to me our potty little trade ain't in it. I move that we both go in for the loocrative profession of diggin'."

"Mumf--mumf--m.u.f.f--m.u.f.f." The ham had conquered Tresco's speech.

"Jes' so. That's what _I_ think, boss."

Benjamin gave a gulp. "I won't take you," he said, as plainly as possible.

"Oh, you won't?"

"I won't."

"Then, suppose I go on my own hook, eh?"

"You've got to stop and look after this shop. You're apprenticed to _me_."

"Oh, indeed!"

"If a man chooses to spend a little holiday in the bush, is his apprentice to suppose his agreement's cancelled? Not a bit of it."

"An' suppose a man chooses to spend a little holiday in gaol, what then?"

"That's outside the sphere of practical politics, my son."

"I don't know so much about that. I think different. I think we'll cry quits. I think I'll go along with you, or likely there'll be trouble."

"Trouble?"

"Yes, trouble."

"What sort of trouble, jackanapes?"

"Why, crimson trouble."

"Indeed."

"I've got you tied hand and foot, boss. You can take that from _me_."

"Is that so? What do you think you can do?"

"I intend to go along with you."

"But I start to-night. If I can sc.r.a.pe together enough food to last a week or two. But I'll take you along. You shall come. I'll show you how I live. Now, then, what d'you say?" There was a twinkle in Tresco's eye, and the corners of his mouth twitched with merriment.

"Think I don't know when I've got a soft thing on?" Jake took off his ap.r.o.n, and hung it on a nail. "Shan't want _that_, for a month or two anyway." Then he faced the "boss" with, "Equal whacks, you old bandicoot. I'll find the tucker, and we'll share the gold."

Tresco's smile broke into a hearty laugh. He put his hands to his sides, threw back his head, and fairly chortled.

"I don't see any joke." Jake looked at his master from beneath his extravagant eyebrows.

"You'll ... you'll get the tucker ... see?"

"Why, yes--how's a man to live?"

"An' you'll help swag it?"

"'Course."

"You'll implicitly obey your lawful lord and master, out on the wallaby?"

"'Spect I'll 'ave to."

"You won't chiack or poke borak at his grey and honoured head when, by reason of his endowment of adipose tissue, his wind gives out?"

"Oh, talk sense. Adipose rabbits' skins!"

"All these several and collective points being agreed upon, my youthful Adonis, I admit you into partners.h.i.+p."

"Done," said the apprentice, with emphasis. "It's a bargain. Go and sleep, and I'll fossick round town for tucker--I'm good for a sixty-pound swag, and you for eighty. So-long."

He turned off the gas, took the key of the side door, which he locked after him, and disappeared, whilst Tresco groped his way to bed.

The surrept.i.tious goldsmith had slept for two hours when the stealthy apprentice let himself quietly into the dark and cheerless house. He bore on his back a heavy bag of flour, and carried on his arm a big basket filled with minor packages gleaned from sleepy shopkeepers, who had been awakened by the lynx-eyed youth knocking at their backdoors.

In the cheerful and enlivening company of an alarum clock, Jake retired to his couch, which consisted of a flax-stuffed mattress resting on a wooden bedstead, and there he quickly buried himself in a weird tangle of dirty blankets, and went to sleep.

At the conclusion of three brief hours, which to the heavy sleeper appeared as so many minutes, the strident alarum woke the apprentice to the stress of life. By the light of a tallow candle he huddled on his clothes, and entered the goldsmith's chamber.

"Now, then, boss, three o'clock! Up you git!"

Benjamin rubbed his eyes, sat up in bed, and yawned.

"''Tis the voice of the sluggard, I heard him complain: You've waked me too soon--I must slumber again.'

What's the time, Jake?"

"Ain't I tellin' you?--three o'clock. If we don't want to be followed by every digger in the town, we must get out of it before dawn."