THE SKETCHES. JACK BANNISTER’S RAMBLES.

Saturday Advertiser, Volume III, Issue 124, 24 November 1877, Page 5

THE SKETCHES. JACK BANNISTER’S RAMBLES.

jßy jAuTHORPE;** NoDountrv/’

BaMBLE THE FlßTffyrfrTHE. STATION CIEBK. It was the Christmas Day. of 1869. In a small room at a public house ori the Nelson •side of the Hurunui sat our old acquaintance, Jack Bannister, inuconSpahy with'two? houd escript individuals who-might be gentlemen ori merely;ordinary station hands, from their dress. One wasi alitall,; handsome fellow, with cleamsbaved'chin and . drooping moustache, who looked more fit ffor a cavalry saddle than anything else. His name was Philip Barnficld. ./The other was a goodhumoured, earelessrloQkrfig fellow, with evident signs of dissipation on a face that had once been plehsilig He Was dressed in boots and breeches and a riding coat, not tootnew, ;was?a thorougly colonised look about him. Jack also wore [boots a fid breeches, and looked very well, . but were .grey hairs mixed with his brown beard. .The three t companions were iall' engaged on the same .station, a very large one—it does not matter whose. Jack was:; clerk,) Philip was stock-rider, anything, and Malcolm Morton was bullock-driver. ” They had come to the Hurunui together to see the sports, and after dinner had adjourned to the landlord’s private room to enjoy themselves over a bottle of brandy. : 1 “Come Jack,” said Philip,-' “ tell : us how. you got on at the West Coast; it may not interest Malcolm much, but to a two-year-old chum like me it’s . different. I cannot make out how it is that, with the chances you have had, you have npt got on better.” “Hang that expression ; lots of fellows have told me that ; why don’t you get on ?” “ Oh, me; it don’t matter about my getting on, because I expect to be sent for. I suppose my father will not trust me with another remittance, considering the fate of the two he has sent, but my mother will. I know she twill as soon as she can save it out of her allowance.”

“You are an only son, aren’t you?” asked Malcolm. • ■ ! ’

“Yes,” answered Philip, “but there is no entailed estate. My father is a merchant, but I did not take kindly to the countinghouse, and my mother would not hear of the army.” ‘ “ What a thing it ’is to have a mother,” sighed Malcolm. “If mine had lived I should never have seen New Zealand, and now look at me”—-he pointed out of the window —“is there, I ask you two fellows, a greater rough in all those two or three hundred shearers and rouseabouts out there than I am to-day ?”;, \iJUOU “Whoseifault is that, Malcolm ?” asked Jack. ... “Why, my father’s,” ansvrered Macolp, savagely. “ I suppose if children have duties to their parents, parents have some duties toward their children. What right had the Colonel to marry again, I should like to know?” ;; “ That’s going rather far, Malcolm ; how old were you when the Colonel married ?” enquired Jack. “ About 'twelve,” answered Malcolm. “Then do you think that you were such a valuable specimen of humanity that your father should have devoted the whole remainder of his life in rearing you, and deny himself every luxury that he might leave you well provided for when he died ?” “ That is not the way to put it,” said Malcolm. “ You hear constantly how men blame others for doing things that they cannot afford to do. Now my father could not afford to marry a young and penniless woman—no matter how pretty she was—and do justice to me. He himself was a younger son, and had not a great deal besides his pay. Had he been the possessor of an entailed estate that must have descended to me auyhow, of course he cbuld. have done as he pleased, and I should have been none the worse, but as it was he had no right to, and the woman whom he married chose to have two sons.”

“ That seems somehow natural enough,” murmured Philip; “ poor woman, she can’t he blamed for that.” •

“ There’s the villainy,” said Jack. “ That’s just it,” said Malcolm, “ for my father got spoony on those two boys. You see, I was always in some scrape or other, and did not hit it very well with my stepmother. I was educated for the church, as there was family interest in that, quarter* but my father said to me one day, * Malcolm, I find that your inclinations are far more secular than sacred, so l shall alter your education from the church to the army,’ but be died before I had my commission.” " My sort of luck that,” observed Jack; “ what happened then .P” “ Why, I was- unprovided for. He left the whole of his property to,my step-mother for her life-time, to be equally divided amongst my half brothers and myself at her death. I can’t talk about it with any patience,” continued Malcolm; " she is only Beren or eight years older than I am, and 'vill outlive me by years without ” “ Without what ?” asked Philip, as he stopped. ' ’ ‘ “ Without I could beg, borrow,-or even €arn a hundred pounds or so.” “What good would that do you?” enquired J ack; " what would you do then ?”

“Go to her own drawing-table,” replied Malcolm. - After the laugh haj subsided', Jack said—- “ Well, Malcolm, that was rather hard on the Colonel’s part td/leave the money like that. How old then ?” “ About twenty.”. - “ And how.old are yOu;Ao vf ?J’ “ Thirty-five. Mere,-push Over the brandy, Phil.” He pouredhimsefif but a glass, drank it undiluted, and - went “on saying, “ Yes, I am thirty-five ; I s have been in the colonies fourteeh years. I could not get on at all at home, so they sent me out here to a big bug, and he* was to push my fortunes. They sent me remittances for some years, but those who sent them are dead —they were my own mother’s side of the family—and my step-mother wants every shilling for her cubs, and I never hear from home now. So for the last few years I Lave been going down, down, down, till I have arrived at bullock-puncher on a station.” “ Where did you learn that ?” enquired Philip. “I’ll tell you,” answered Malcolm. “ There was a fellow going to the Port Curtis rush in Queensland, and he persuaded me to go with him from Christchurch. .1 Had just gota remittance; I : wen t, arid 5 came *to * grief.'*• One day, as I was making my way down to town penniless, I overtook a bullock-dray, and the driver asked me to jump up. He was the roughest specimen of a human 5 -being I ever saw. His face was the colour of mahogany, and ugly at that; bis bands were all knots, and like the men in Falstaff’s [Regiment, he walked wide .between the legs as if he had gyves on. I took a fancy to that man, and he to me. He was an old Vandemoni'an convict; could neither read nor write, and I don’t believe anyone had ever told him there was a God ; but for all that he had his good points—he was lavishly generous. He taught me bullock-driving. He said I was a natural s born bullock-driver.”

“What made him say that?” asked Jack. 7’ 7. .

“From hearing me address the bullocks at any bad ; bit of road. You kripw I told you I was’educated for the church, and although, if I bad been a parson, I,might not have saved many souls of nien, yet from my natural flow of language, I. could cutae bullocks with an emphasis that won the, admiration of Bill. He had two team's of Kißown, and I used to drive one and he the other. We travelled together for more than a'year —the three of us.” // / 1

“ What do you mean by the three of you,” said Phil.

“ Oh, I mean the gin,” replied Malcolm. Bill had a black gin ; had bad her for years, and she travelled with him dressed as a boy. She was better than any watch-dog, and only had one fault —she would get at the rum, keg. ? Bill always slept with his head against it under the dray, but somehow she managed to get. at it, and then there would be a row. Sometimes Bill would get on the spree and hammer her, but as a rule he was kind to her in his rough way. When he was drunk he would get maudlin, and weep about his gin, and say pathetically, ‘I won’t have the poor dear ill-treated ; she’s been a d—d good gin to me.’” “ You must have been an interesting trio,” observed Jack. «We were,” said Malcolm ; “ but such happiness could not last, so Bill died, and the Government nailed his property. Then I came back to New Zealand, and took to bullock-driving for a living, and am now not fit for anything else.” “By Jove, but it’s an awful waste of life, ’ said Philip. “ All my father’s fault,” said Malcolm. “What right had he to bring me up with tastes of a gentleman, and then throw me upon the> world more helpless—as far as earning my own living—than Bill the bullock driver?; What do you think you will become, Rhib if you stay in the colony, or Jack there?” f/ ' • : ; ” “I don’t,£ndw v ”. answered Philip; “ Why,/nothing better than we are at present. Thecolonies are not the ..place for fellows like uS/PWe arejidffit for colonists—we could never make good’ones.” ‘‘ As far as I am individually concerned,” observed Jack, “I don’t know what I am fit for; but let us hear why we cannot make good colonists.” .!//■ i . i c Because we have not the capital t© be employers, and only submit to be employed from sheer necessity to live. W e are out of our element. W e cannot commence at the bottom of the ladder and gradually, by steady perseverance, work our way up to be —say station owners; and even if we could, is the position of a station owner as good as that we occupied as boys ? would one out of every twenty station owners be admitted into your mother’s drawing-room, J ack, supposing her to be alive P” “ I don’t see that you have any right to think that,” said Jack. “My instinct tells me that your class is different even to Philip’s. He is the son of a merchant, and has been kicked out. of England for playing up; his friends think New Zealand is a good place for him to sow that crop of wild oats in without injuring the home pastures, and by-and-bye he will' go back, and they will kill the fatted calf. ’ “ That’s it,” said Philip, laughing; “ but Jack never told what first made him come to the colonies.” : AY/ 7 'L ,07 . “ You need not ask, Philip. It shows how young and inexperienced you are for

I . jslplacEiiap your cavalry .moustache,’ said Malcolm. “ How is that?” asked Philip. “Is Jack at all.reticent about anything ithat has to him in the colonies P’’: J : “No.” / “ Have you/? not discovered that Jack thinks all occupations by: which money is made and a diving earned are on a level ? that if he has to do anything at all to keep himself, he would just as soon be clerk bii the station as manager ?”'// 77 -kj /j '7: J ack laughed. / . /V - / ic ~ “ Therefore, Phil, I will. Yell/you/in one word what brought Jack; tri‘thecolonies, and why he has never mentioned home. ” '■ “A woman.” Jack slightly; coloured, [ buts said not a word. ff And,'*.said:Malcolm, after a pause, “‘ his silence says plainly—boys, suppose you don’t ask me anything about it.” “ Roughing it hasinnot r crushed all the gentlemany feeling out of you, Malcolm,” said 1 Jack, warmly ; “ here's your health.” “Well, I hope not,-Jack ; but I think I have shown you- pretty clearly that We are not of much use in the colonies. C)ur education is thrown away because we cannot utilise it. We have no trade or profession, consequently we can only take up unskilled, labour as a means by which to dive ; and we are not of so much use as three uneducated unskilled labourers, because •; w# work jindet. protest, ' as. it were, and,. they ./would dolt because it is tbeir birthright,;and they would marry perhaps in their station, and bring'up families. There are two, good sorts of colonists: —first, the man Who brings large capital, invests it, employs labourj and lives in the country, taking an honest part in the legislature, and a deep interest in the welfare of the community generally ; and, secondly, the man of humble origin, whether tradesman or: shopkeeper, who settles down and grows with the place, every year making his social position better than ever it was in his life before —to such a man there is no past to regret, and all his interests and ambitions become, centred in the new! couiitry he has made his home, hence his value as : a colonist.” ? “ You understand, the colonies pretty well, Malcolm,” said Jack. “If, by any improbable freak of fortune I should ever become rich, I will lend you enough-money to buy a station.” ! , • , “ It would be too late, my boy,” replied Malcolm; “I should run through it like a flash of lightning. I have nothing on earth to care about but myself, and I have left |off doing that long since. I shall never marry, for the sort of woman I would marry would not be fool enough to marry me. I was very fond of a girl at home,, and she of me, I think ; but when the colonel died, and her father found I had, nothing to. depend upon,. he very wisely broke off the connection —she, became Lady years ago. But here, stop this kind of talk. Hammer away at the door, Phii ; that’s right. ' Now, landlord, s bring another bottle of brandy and some cigars ; but first pull my boots off.” The landlord stooped down and pulled off Malcolm’s boots, spurs, and all with them, and said, “ I suppose you won’t go up to the station to-night ? there will be no shearing to-morrow, half the men are, drunk already.”; “No, I shan’t go to-night;, shall you, Jack ?” “I’ll see how the men shape,” replied Jack. ■ ■ ,J- 7,’ ,7 :ri ' ; “Yery well, then. Bring me a pair of slippers, landlord, and we.wiU sleep in this room somehow ; don’t let any of-those chaps in. ” •• The landlord brought the slippers and brandy, and after he had gone,.Philip said, “ Now tell us about' the West Coast, Jack.” “ Yes,” said Malcolm, “ it’s your turn to do a little talking now; I did not think I had as much in me.” “Yery well,” said Jack, “I will tell you. You have heard me speak of my friend Reginald, the squatter ?” A “ Yes ; that’s a fellow I Hke,” said Philip. “Yes,” observed Malcolm, “he is one of those men about whom sagacious people remark that he is no one’s enemy but his own. Go on, Jack.” “Well, after I lost everything I had on the Shotover in the Old Man flood,” saidJack, “I took to packing up the river to Skippers when that place broke out. It was the most awful place' to take horses to you can imagine—but you can not imagine it, you would have to see the track to believe it. Most of it is cut on sidlings; and if a horse made a slip, he went down five hundred feet perhaps. In and out of some of the gullies it looks exactly like a corkscrew. To give you some idea of it, I’ll tell you what, the first man that ever took pack horses up there said of the track when he was asked, upon his return, to Queenstown, what he thought of it. He was a Yankee. ‘ Track you call it, eh ?’ he said ; ‘ I guess my bosses are like cats, and kin. climb any tracks that are only perpendicular; but; by thunder, these darned tracks hang over !’ ” “I’ll drink that packer’s health,” said Malcolm, suiting the action to the word. “So will I,” said Philip, following suit. “I got tired of the packing at : last,” continued Jack, “and started away down to Cromwell. There everything was at a standstill, so I thought I would try and make the Waitaki through the Lindis Pass. That is another;cheerful spot of earth ! I think I I crossed the Lindis River about twenty tunes in one day, more;or less j but I/got through

the Pass, and eventually reached Reginald’sktationi.” ilh’eed inot tell yS hbVl Was |eL ceived' there,but : after 5 1 % had ! been there: about four months-'tW/WPst, t poast rush broke out* ahd ' I was veiy ‘glad, as it was & good: excuse to get ! away.” 00U.0OX .. ‘ ‘ What did you want:ito get away for ?” asked Phil..noH >0.1! “ This is why : I was there as a friend—on a visit, as it were. Now Reginald was an expensive fellow, and so were * Rcainald’a friends ; • we had had 1 " one or * t'wq trips to Oamaru. and those trips had shaken, the constitution of ' hiy purse to its very foundstiofi.” ■'*' / *

, “ I know that sensation,” interrupted Malcolm.' '“ Pull up a hrinute for-a wet, Jack.” After complying, Jack went, pn :r “My money running short, I was glad, of lan excuse to leave before I was obliged to I had done that once before of Reginald, and it was more than a. year after when t sent it;to him.” • ■ •• • . “ What i a constitution that man must have,” sighed Malcolm. ;• 7 “ Why ?”>asked Philipp ; ; ' 7; ’ Jack smiled,'and said nothing. “To recover from such an overwhelming; fit of astonishment as he must have been convulsed with bn receipt of the money. Goon,’ ’Jii'ck.” ' ) •„,(.] vn! “ Well, I did not want to borrow again if I could help it, for, I suppose, you reppllect that at home we make it a point of honour not to borrow of friends and intimates.” 5 “ Who the devil should you borrow from,’’' cried,Philip.;,; . >-r • ■ ‘ Malcolm smiled. “From men who can put you to trouble and inconvenience if you don’t pay. Tknevr a fellow who was heir to about fifteen thousand a year cut dead by a man who couldn’t pay his tailor’s* bill, for doing that, although the man he borrowed from had a large rent oi vhfiM v- .h'-ithucJ 5

•“ That seems hard though,” said Philip. / “ Not at all hard,” said Jack. “ There are men who make a business of lending at usurious interest. They run certain risks in. doing so ; well, when a no! longer raise money from these peopte/jie must have: pawhied his all, and should quietly drop out of society.” ,- ; L ;; ■/ .; Cl; “ But this fellow, who was heir to an estate, could pay his friend when he came into it.”, 1: 77 7'7"777 ,-7}'" .J... " All the more, reason for him to have gone, tb- a money lender! There is no excuse ; when a gentleman borrows from a gentleman the action,says plainly ‘ I have, pawned all but my soul/” mi.t'm

“ Do you call a man a friend who won’t lend you his money ?” ; - ; • . / ;lL ,> “ You don’t clearly understand, Phil,” put in Malcolm. “ Amongst gentlemen of* a certain class at home it is not. considered chic to borrow of friends. He was not speaking of men who earn’money in any way at all; but men of independent private resources ; when those resources aire completely exhausted; a man of that class'should gracefully retire. “That’s what I mean,” said Jack. “I was rather stretching it in my case. Of course a man who earns money, or would,, could, or [should earn money, can borrow money from a friend of the same stamp ; 'iff-, he cannot pay next week, he can next year-71 I don’t mean to say that I would not have borrowed money of Reginald to go to the West Coast with, but I was glad I could do without—Wat's all,”

“ I think I understand what you meant now. Of course, I borrowed money from whoever would lend! it on the strength of my father. . They could; get me into a row if XT did hot pay • and I didn't, and they did, and/' I’m here.”

Both Jack! and Malcolm laughed at Philip’s way of putting it, who went on to say : “ But you were speaking of the upper ten— : a class who toil not, neither do they spin, though they are not quite as spotless as the lilies of the field —not that I know ■ anything about them personally.” "7; ! v “ Then what the devil do you talk about things you know nothing about for ?” said Jack, angrily. “The upper ten of England are as spotless as any other class that exists upon the face of the earth, and the people, who say to the contrary have no more oppor- “ tunity of knowing than if they lived inf another planet.” “ I beg your pardon, Jack, I ani sure, if I have offended you,” said Philip, goodnaturedly. , “ Oh, I have no right to be offended,” replied Jack. “I never was anything but an outsider; 'but, upon the strength of a certain connection, I once lived on the other side of that line that men of mere wealth sometimes seem as if they would give their very souls to cross/* . > * f -rsr “ Get on to the West Coast," Jack,” saieffj Malcolm, very quietly. “ Yery well, boys,” assented Jack, “ Suppose we land at Hokitika, and pitch a .tent though tents in the town were not long the order of the day; wooden/buildings were A run up seemingly by magic. _ It seems now that what an old Victorian said to me about . 7 the building mania was correct.; It is a! mis* take, said he,, to build anything hut mere 7 makeshifts. In Yictoria, for' a long time, • • the business places were only-canvas—paper/- - hotels (as they were called) did not cost • much, and could I Be deserted when a new rush took place. The storekeeper hauled

the canvas off: the frame of his store, -and took it with hiin, leaving the frame ; therefore the money a man made in business of any kind he had in his pocket,-so to speak; it was not sunk in an expensive; building. That ought to be the case here. There is nothing to warrant the erection of such costly buildings at present; if the gold gets worked out in.a few years,..as .it may,.all the,se build; ings-will-not-be-worth-what-it-has eost-to-paint them, 7 J, believe;he was,. quite: right; and .before.long,, frontiwhat fi r saw when I left .the West .Coast, < ithe 'buildings 3 will tumble to : pieces for want of some one to look after, them,"-/// . . . ..• •.d»ib»>ihq-- a'lool “ Then, do you mean to say,” said Mai* colm, “ that the,- money made at Hokitika: lias - been spent in. Building a town that is fast becoming/valueless; P”b o . ofqirrug ton of V;Hot quite, that* but nearly so/’ replied Jack. , ; > ii Jijjii -I i!:- ’t ; “ Then the West Coast rush did: no good to.,New Zealand at that rate," said Philip. ‘ “ There you. mistake,. Philip," said Jack, “ The West Coast was the saving! of Hew Zealand, and broke out just in the very nick of time. Everything-was-at a stand-still. The Lake district was completely insolvent; there had been a great lot of rubbish talked about the Shotover ; all; the gold that ever came out of that river cost more to get than it was worth; the river was a stringer. , I will give you a short history, of one claim, as a sample of many. The party was, ten‘in number ; they erected a water wheel to drive Californian pumps ; they carried poles to make crates five miles on their backs,; they, got the crates fixed —” “ I beg your pardon, Jack ; but what is a crate?” asked Phil. : :

“ A thing like what crockery is packed in, only made of strong poles,” explained Jack. “ These crates are filled with stones and dirt and placed in the river to dam the water, hack, and leave the bed of the river so that a paddock can he sunk. It is awful slavish work. The party that I speak of got their paddock nearly bottomed five different times, and each time a flood came and swept everything away. At last they bottomed and got the gold, and there was a great howl in the papers about the rich claim. The papers did. not say that the whole of the gold did not pay the working expenses of the claim and the men’s tucker ; certainly not, they only, mentioned that a certain amount of gold was got, but wisely refrained from saying how much an ounce it cost to get it, or that the men had worked harder and lived worse than any slaves that ever were owned. There have been enough lies told about the Hew Zealand gold fields to sink the island. At the time I speak of,"I continued Jack, “ the miners owed for their tucker to the,small storekeepers up the river;, they were in debt to the storekeepers in Queenstown ; they in their turn to the larger storekeepers (merchants they call themselves) in Dunedin, when the West Coast broke out. The miners cleared out, leaving their debts I and claims behind them; the river storekeepers followed, then the Queenstown men. They all met on the West Coast, and most of the storekeepers got paid. I know a storekeeper who had over three thousand pounds upon his hooks, and he got nearly all of it on the West Coast. I will say this for the miner, he will pay when he has got the money; as a rule, his store bill is quite a debt of honour with him. •

“ Suppose we drink his health,” said Malcolm.

This being done, Jack continued: “ The West Coast absorbed all the hard-up population ; it was a market for all the surplus stock and provisions in Canterbury and Helson; it revived trade everywhere, and did good to all classes in Hew Zealand ; but for all that, building Hokitika was a mistake.” “ Did you get any gold, Jack ?” asked Philip. * “Why, of course not,” answered Jack, “ that is, none worth mentioning. Of course I got some, and I went to nearly all the rushes. I was just about getting tired of it, when I fell in with an actor I had known

in Sydney, and he persuaded me to rent a theatre with him.”

“ This is getting interesting,” observed Philip. “ I did not care much for the good the West Coast did to the country. ” * “Hor I either,” said Malcolm. “Ring Bp the curtain, Jack.” Jack laughed and said: “ It was an ominous thing that the theatre was an asset in an insolvent estate, 1 but so it was. The rent

was ten pounds a week, and there was a bar in front. My friend and I opened the theatre with a very fair company,. and we put up : good pieces. I was a sleeping partner in the affair, I must tell you, and not many people beside the company knew I had anything to do with it. I believe I told you, Malcolm, that when I was hard-up in Sydney, I did a little light comedy at the Victoria.”

Malcolm nodded. “ I did anything at this theatre to stop a gap,” he continued, “ I played old men, villains, lovers, any blessed line that was wanted at the time.”

“ And you still lire,” remarked Malcolm. “ That’s more by chance and good luck than anything else; I nearly came to grief one night.” ' “ How was that ?” “Why, I began to think, as the people yid not hiss me much that I must hare been

intended for an actor, and so I grew ambits, and insisted upon playing Claude Mel-

'viße-foriifl^ was): “ was; doubtful,' but h^&pfisented,:. and the ‘Lady of Lyons’ was announced/' and the town billed.*The PauliniFwas a married lady, and a very good actress. She promised to pull me through,- and I studied my part till I was dea^letW^perfect;’i Vlib night lcamej,,4;.nd_therer,was : deseriptionnof Comd/biti - Do'throw a little more life info it/ whispered Pauline ! . How, I ask< you/ boys* ; how I couldthvow’ my life into it ? : Pauline Was thirty-fi're/ if 1 she was a d ay. ! > *:I had • had tea with- her only an .hour or two: before; and 5 had 1 heard ' her growl about the -steak l and ofitohs not being done enough—the flavour bf ; tliose onions 'still haunted her ambrosia! got my share and more while I was trying to tbll her what sort of a crib Como was. like. The audience began, to hiss ; I tried to hurry through:my ; part and,got stuck; an unappreciative digger put a bottle of ginger beer, to his lips* drank off the contents, and deliberately shied [ the bottle at my head. It flew past me, and floored a stranger who was standing close to one of the wings—one of those fellows who think it fast to go behind, the scenes of a theatre and shout champagne. Hever mind the rest of the play. The curtain went down amidst a storm of hisses, yells, howls,- .and laughter. Ido not think I can play Claude Melnotte: my Pauline thinks I cannot.”

“ Can you jplay .anything at all, Jack,” asked Malcolm, when they had </ done laughing. .! “ Yes, I can. I can play Jeremy Diddler, in “ Raising the Wind.”; I opened in that when I was hard-up in Sydney.” u Ci Very appropriate,” said Philip ; “ how I did you get in afterwards 1” ■■■ ; • • “ The business got worse and worse every week,” Jack continued, “and the storekeeper’s accounts for liquors, for the bar trade, longer and longer, till one morning my partner said—after we had paid the com--pany half salaries—Do you know how much there is in the bank, Jack V ‘ I suppose you mean how little, V I answered. ,‘We have a balance of ninepence,’ said he ; ‘it appears to me to be only a question of time when, we : shut iip' : I;suppose that as long as, the ..corn-, pany wil! play for half salaries, and the store-

keepers keep sending in stuff, we may as well keep open.* I objected to this, and said ■ that as the smash must come some time, it had better come at once. So, to cut the matter short, I did not appear at all, and my j mate called the creditors together quietly, I and told them it was a losing speculation, and that he was sorry for them, but it was better to lose a little now than to keep on with the certainty of losing more. They agreed with him, and he got the company at the other theatre to give him a benefit, raised about seventy pounds by it, and went away to Melbourne happy and respected. ” “ And you ?” said Malcolm. “ Oh, me,” sighed Jack, “ I took it out in fun. I had about sixty pounds when I went into the spec, and about sixty shillings when I came out of it.”

“ And how much did he lose V enquired phiup. "‘/v “ He never had anything to lose,” replied Jack. “He was one of the “ nicest ” fellows

I have known in the colonies, and always gets pitied. No,” Jack went on, “I don’t think I was intended for an actor ; no matter what I play, I am always Jack Bannister. ” “ Then you never can be an actor,” said Malcolm. “ With such men as Phelps, the elder Eean, Macready, and G. Y. Brooke, that is not the case : you see Hamlet, Richard, Macbeth, or what not. Now Claude Melnotte, with a high flavour of Jack Bannister, is not the author's conception. I don’t wonder that the theatre went to the devil.” “Nor I either,” said Jack, laughing. “ Now what do you say, boys, if we get our horses and make for the station? We can’t sleep with all this row in the house, so pull on your boots, Malcolm, and let us go. ” Malcolm sighed deeply. “ When shall we three meet again V’ said he ; “ but no matter, I will go if you wish it—let’s finish the brandy, though.” They did so, called the landlord, paid their bill, and ten- minutes after were galloping across the Hurunui Plains in the moonlight.