"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 division of the Formicae?"
"The what?"
"Formicae. 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 dare n"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."
"Is n"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 teetotaller would administer a nip to a man who was beginning to see things. "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 might n"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. Are n"t you betting on a certainty? Lay it on the window-sill, if you like, and pick it up when you can read your t.i.tle clear. If you don"t speculate, you won"t acc.u.mulate; 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 would n"t be quite so laconic. How the (sheol) comes it that you did n"t fetch the mail?"
"Need n"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 to 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 Padd.i.c.k.
"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"
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!"