A NOBLE RASCAL.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XV, Issue II, 13 July 1895, Page 35

A NOBLE RASCAL.

I have met and been thrown into intimacy with many scamps in my time, but I think the worst case of depravity, short of downright criminality, I ever ran across, was a certain young fellow who called himself Lord , and whose hunting grounds, at the particular time to which I refer, was a bush town called Tambo, somewhere about the more central part of Queensland. That this young man belonged to the family to which he claimed to belong, was beyond all doubt, though there was much question whether he had any right to the title he assumed.

He had been sent to Australia under exceedingly good auspices, to be tamed of his wild habits, for his original occupation on arrival there was attache to the Governor of New South Wales. He had a liberal allowance, and his position socially was all that could be wished, though I daresay, it may not have been as brilliant as that in which his exploits were performed at home. At any rate, his position, if he had any desire at all to reform, was infinitely better than that of a lot more of us, who bad been sent adrift with a couple of letters of introduction at the most, and those none too cordially expressed, a limited allowance, and the advice, by no means equivocably given, to change our ways, or never show our faces at horaeagain.

Some fellows never know when they are well off—and Lord was one of these. For the Governor of New South Wales 'though doubtless, in the first place, weighty influence had been brought to bear to get Lord

his appointment), soon tired of his pranks, and sent him to the right about. He turned up in Brisbane, where he in no way added to his good name, and later on he made his way to Augathella, a little bush town on the Nive River, where he was employed as a ‘ jackaroo ’ on a sheep station. There were ladies, however, in the squatter’s family, so needless to say his stay on the station was an exceedingly short one. As it happened, it was shearing time on the several Nive stations, and what with horse-racing and cardplaying and hard drinking he soon became quite a hero with the shearers and other more questionable characters that at these busy times, as well in Australia as elsewhere, always find their way to where money is more or less freely spent. When Lord left Augathella he went to Tambo, and there made desperate love to a barmaid, all of whose ready cash he borrowed. He bought a buckboard and a fine team of horses for Z’loo—or. credit—and levanted. Just about this time, to his ill-luck, certain checks of his began to return from a round trip they had taken to Brisbane, and my lord was anxiously inquired after by the many people whose champagne he had drunk on the strength of them. Among the more pertinacious in their inquiries was one Harry Goffage—who had sold him the buckboard and team of horses on credit. He was so perseveringly solicitious about Lord ' s whereabouts that at last he got on his track and had him (with the buckboard and horses) brought back to Tambo. Lord ’s nonchalance was refreshing. * I’m awfully glad you sent for me, Harry,’ he said to Goffage. * It’s all a mistake, of course ; but if it hadn’t been for you, dear boy, I might never have known it and, by Jove, a man’s name can’t stand returned cheques ! I tell you, old man, I’m infinitely obliged to you I’ The man’s talk was so assured, and apparently he was so innocent of guile, that before long he, and a lot of the very people who, a short while before, were the most anxious to lay hands upon him. were sitting in the hotel bar and drinking champagne together (always, of course on credit) as if nothing had happened and they were the best friends in the world. I tell all this to show what the man was, and to lead upto his crowning meanness—a meanness so very mean that one can hardly credit a human being capable of it And yet I swear the story is true. Lord had been in the habit of receiving his allowance quarterly through a solicitor in Brisbane Forging this solicitor’s name, he cabled to his mother (who was a widow), that he, Lord , W as dead and requesting a remittance of /'goo to cover the expenses of embalming his own body and sending it home. This money the infernal rascal in some way got his hands upon, and paying what he was absolutely forced to pay, disappeared. G.H.