The Man who Walked Away

Thames Star, Volume xxx, Issue 9308, 21 February 1899, Page 4

The Man who Walked Away

STORY OF A THAMES SHAKE-' BROKER. (From the Hauraki Tribune.) When Henry Lawson, the Australian poet, visited Wellington, he foolishly wrote his name in Stationer Bayley's book of autographs, containing Seddon, Forbes, Saia and other names of booming guns. Under his own name he wrote —to be afterwards criticised adversely- - this verse, full of soul: A stranger came to Wellington, And with a crippled pen, He wrote his name in Bayley's book. And went away again. There was an able imitation of Henry Lawson in a far-back Thames celebrity named David R. Gellion, a sharebroker of rolling days. Our "n----formant tells us that David "went away" ; he went not clandestinely as a thief in the night, but he arose and searched for his partner, and said, "I think I'll go away," and he went to Melbourne. What is the explanation? Thousands of people pack up. He didn't. The explanation is simple—weary of the hopeless monotony. He obeyed the restive soul, and arose, and, without any fuss, marched. He left, as if tired. Oh! the delight of leaving the door open and going away. He never came back. He died in Victoria. There was satire, too. For, when leaving the wharf, Lindsay Jackson, n hardy pioneer Thames prospector, offered him a box of wooden matches, half a gross, in a closed box, saying, "Here's a present for the matchless Gellion; he never has any ; don't open till on the boat.' And so a scrap of early incident detailed by E. E. in a merry moment recalls a living past. The delight of going away is great. Thousands annually disappear. But the wretched Nemesis is ever on the trail. L. D. B.