CHAPTER I

New Zealand Illustrated Magazine, Volume 1, Issue 6, 1 March 1900, Page 29

CHAPTER I

§AIWHARE, in the Province of Hawke's Bay, is not a well known holiday resort. This is not surcasual visitor. However^ the train stops there, if requested, and the belated passenger can walk, if he likes, as far as the Criterion Hotel, and have a little refreshment of a doubtful character ; "fusel-oil " is cheap at Maiwhare, and the trade is large on Saturday night. Fourteen bush men, a bricklayer, and two bullock drivers get paralytically drunk at the Criterion every Saturday. It is their " week-end," and they would not resign their right to it for all the policemen in Hawke's Bay. But the business of "The Cri" does not consist entirely of these regular customers. Commercial gentlemen in various lines occasionally puss the night there ; Austrians have been known to dine there, and two Maoris, an ex-policeman, and four swagsrnen caroused in the back parlour for four hours in a regardless-of-expense style only last week. The "boss" was delighted, Dan Bargle had been for two years president of the Criterion, and found it suited his retiring

nature to a nicety. An unjust and inquisitive Legislature would have insisted on his resigning the unlimited freedom that his sanguine natnre loved so well, had ho not with native tact preferred to depart for the genial shores of New Zealand, there to make his home and fortune. Christmas time was Dan'ft harvest; ho laid himself out for it. Not that he expected much from the fourteen bushmon and their companions ; their spare cash had come into the till during the year. It was the holidaymaking farm hands, sheep shearers, cattle drivers and regular labourers that he loved ; men who planked down their cheques on their intended way to town, who furnished him a generous crop of profits every year ; many of them returning to work, well satisfied, long before they got to Napier ; they had had their fun, and spent their monoy. They had kept up Christmas regardless of expense What more could they want ? In the month of November, last year, Hill Maclise, of Dashmere, got his cheque and "the sack" at the same time. The cheque was all right, but the sack came too soon. Bill was an optimist, and a lazy parasite. He left at the combined request of his employer and his employer's manager, and went straight to the Criterion Hotel, Maiwhare, planked down his money, and Dan Bargle kept him drunk fora week, then showed him the door. Now Bill Maclise was a sonsitive man, and was naturally indignant ut this unjust treatment, and it was in high dudgeon that

he departed for a long tramp about seven o'clock in the evening. it was Saturday, and he knew there would be the usual harvest at the Criterion. Bill had nob got a "stiver," as he termed it, but his national pride came to the rescue, he thought of his motherwit. Surely there

must be some means of regaining a portion, however small, of his squandered fortune. While he was sitting by the roadside, ruminating on the injustice of things in general, a sound of "quack ! quack !" caused a happy thought to strike him. He had heard it the day before, three miles away. Geese, Christmas geese ! Young, tender, beautiful geese ; goslings ready for slaughter; white geese with pink bills and gentle voices. It was a gold mine ! But he couldn't live on raw goslings, however tender. Neither Could he go promenading about Maiwhare

with a lot of geese in his swag, without causing remark. Motherwit, the Irishman's inheritance, camp to the aid of William Maclise.