ALNASCHAR.

Otago Witness, Issue 1900, 3 July 1890, Page 34

ALNASCHAR.

By A. E. A.

He had been a ship's purser, foremast hand, digger, sawmill overseer, station manager, farm hand, and had finally gravitated into the not very lucrative position of cook on a survey party at work in the heart of the bush country of the North Island. He was of a sanguine, speculative disposition, having a deep rooted faith that he was to " strike it rich " some day, and though at the time this story opens he had seen some fifty odd winters, he would allow his imagination to run riot in describing some of the ways in which lie would make his money fly when Dame Fortune should ultimately smile upon him. Among his many efforts to attract the favourable attention of that very fickle lady he was accustomed to forward to Sydney every year the sum of £1, to be invested in one of those gigantic sweeps which in the colonies supply the place of the Slate lotteries of the Continent, with this difference, however, that the very respectable dividend of 10 per cent, in the former case goes into the private coffers of the enterprising individuals who organise the sweep instead of into the national treasury, and thus to some extent taking the place of direct taxation. But he never troubled his head with these considerations, but annually parted with his money, lived in a fever of ! expectation until the result was known and he had drawn blank ; then, muttering some hope-sustaining proverb, such as " Better luck next time," would settle down patiently to bis work, or resume the investigation of some scheme he was hatching with a view to patent, such as recovering all the coal burnt in a boiler furnace and using it over again ad infimtum ; or maybe he would be hammering his brains to put the finishing touch on a patent suspender button, a submarine boat, or a sausage machine. Such was the infinite variety of his genius, and the amount of brain power he expended on these and similar attempts to set the Thames on fire expressed in foot pounds per second would be astonishing. One of his duties as cook consisted in making periodic trips to distant camps with supplies of bread, &c, and these journeys were the bete noir of the old man's existence. It was the middle of a very wet winter, and the bush tracks were very slippery on the hills, and for the most part under water on the flats. The first time he made a journey under these conditions he expressed hinrself thus on arriving at his destination—" H'm I a fellow might as well be a crocodile at once ; in the watpr half your time ! " And the name "crocodile track" attached itself to that particular track among the members of the party from that time. He was full of old sea sayings, and addressed his mates as " old hoss," much to their amusement. If the camp were short of provisions he would announce the fact like this, "It's banyan day to-day, old hoss, so you must be easy on the bread." Mails were very irregular in reaching the camp, and the old man had had his ticket in the great £10,000 sweep for a month before he knew the result, and his mind during that time swung like a pendulum between the hope of "riches beyond the dreams of avarice" and "another pound gone to the devil." Owing to the exigencies of the work he was the sole tenant of the main depot camp, the rest of the party being in distant "flying camps," and he was preparing to bake a batch of bread to take out along the " crocodile track " the next day. The wind was rising, and moaned fitfully among the pine tops, and came in occasional gusts that drove the smoke into his face and the ashes all over his cleanly-swept table, causing him to mutter execrations on the weather. Moreover, his " corns " were aching, a sure premonition to him of a wet walk on the morrow. At length the loaf was in the camp oven, and piled up with good maire embers, | and he sat down on the tree fern stump that served him as a chair. He was startled from j the reverie into which he had fallen by the sound of a horse's feet approaching along the pack track leading to the camp from the outer world of civilisation known as the " open country." The sounds got nearer and nearer until at last there emerged into the open space round the camp, lib up by the flickering light of the fire, a man riding a black horse. After the usual greetings between strangers meeting in the bush under similar circumstances, and the saddle had been taken off the horse, the slip bars been ' put up across the track, and the animal turned loose to browse on the uudergrowth till the morning, and the man had sat down to fie table with a pannikin of hot tea and a plate of wild pork before him, he proceeded to explain that he had come up to have a look at the land, as he understood that the block would be offered for sale shortly. " By the way," he said, " I called at the post office as I came by, and brought the boss' mail ; it's in the saddle bag." "All right; I'll put it in his tent. No, I'm going down to him to-morrow ; I'll put it in my swag." A small packet of letters and a large bundle of newspapers were brought out, and the old man, lighting a candle, proceeded to put them inside the tent, looking over the letters to see if there was one for him. Yes, there was one, and with the Sydney postmark too. With trembling hands he opened the envelope and drew out a slip of printed paper. Reaching for his spectacles, and hurriedly adjusting them, he read as follows :—: — Sir, -I have much pleasure In informing you that you have drawn " Boscobd " in my £10,000 consultation on the Birthday Cup. The horse starts a strong favourite at 6 to 4. I am, Sir, Your obfdient 6ervant, J. M. Georges'>n. A hurried search among the remaining letters produced a second similaily addressed envelope, containing the information that Boscobel had won tha Cup, and consequently the holder of ticket No. 3179 was entitled to the sum of £5000 less 10 per cent., aud the writer asked for the ticket to be forwarded, and wished to be instructed as to which bank he should pay the sum of £4500 to his credit. Dazed and stunned for the moment with the sudden turn in his fortunes, the old man stood with the two letters grasped in one

hand and the guttering candle in the other, utterly oblivious of the stranger's third request for " another pannikin of tea, please." Suddenly awaking, he rushed out into the night air, when a friendly stump tripped him up and brought him to himself. He did not say a word to the stranger of the cause of his strange behaviour, and the latter, accustomed to meeting eccentric individuals in similar positions, did not pay much attention to his vagaries. The next morning, instead of starting down the " crocodile track," he made up a small swag of his personal effects, wrote a huiried note to the boss to the effect that " urgent private business " demanded his presence in town, and set off down the track, carrying his saddle and bridle to the clearing where the horses were running. After a considerable delay he succeeded in catching his pony, and rode off to the township. Arrived at the hotel he got pen and paper and sent off his ticket, with instructions as to how he would like to have his money forwarded. A month has passed since the news of his good fortune reached him, and he is now more familiar with the change. Behold him now seated at a well-spread table in a private room at one of the best hotels in Wellington, with five of his cronies. He is raising a glass of sparkling champagne to his lips, and critically eyeing the bubbles as they rise to the surface. As the evening wears on, and the revellers get mellow under the influence of the good cheer before them, jam succeeds yarn, and the old man is repeating for the fifth or sixth time some of his experiences in the bush. 11 Why in heaven's name do they send up the pastry all burnt ? Waiter, this pie's all burnt, old hoss 1 it's smoking now. Why, there's something afire in the room." "Gracious goodness I where ami? Bless my eyes, my loaf's burnt to a cinder I I've been to sleep, I think." And so Alnaschar returns to consciousness to find himself nodding over a smoking camp oven at the bush Gamp— the arrival of the stranger with the mail, his own two letters and his drawing the first prize in the big lottery, all the creations of his fancy ; and as he turns into his solitary bunk he mutters : •' And so I'll have to tramp that d d 1 crocodile track ' to-morrow after all I " Advice to Mothers I— Are yon broken in your rest by a sick child suffering w ith the pahiof outting teeth ? Go at onco to n chemist and got a bottle of Mns WiNStow's Soothing Syrup, it will relieve the poor sufferer immediately. It Is perfectly harmtest and pleasant to the taste ; it produces natural quiet sleep, by relieving the child from pain ; and the little cherub awakes "as bright ft* a button." It 8' othes the child, it softens the gums, allays all pain, relieves wind, reftulnt.es the bowels, and is the b«st known remedy for dysentery and diarrhoea, whether arising from teething or other causes. Mna Wucsi.ow f 8 Soothing Syrup is sold by medicinedealers everywhere at 1» 4Jd per bottle.— [Advt.] — Testy Judge (toJjuror) : "On what grounds do you asked to be excused from serving on the jury?"—" I had rather not say."— "But you must say, sir.—" I do not wish everybody to hear, my lord, in case you should refuse my request. If I might tell it to your Lordship alone ?"—" Well, well, come up here." Juror goes up to the bench and whispers it to his Lordship. His Lordship (involuntarily scratching himself): "Certainly; get outside as quickly as you can. Good gracious, we shall all have it 1 "