BOB'S BILLETS.

New Zealand Illustrated Magazine, 1 February 1905, Page 378

BOB'S BILLETS.

No* IL-THE FARM-MANAGER.

By "ROLLINGSTONE."

EKSO.NALLY, I do not like serials, this is not one, but it has all the advantages without the disadvantages. You can read Part 11., for instance, without wishing to goodness you had Part 1. to get the hang of the story, and there is a delightful absence of the strain of

remembering what Bob did or did not do in a previous instalment. If you take a fancy to Bob you will be just as anxious to renew his acquaintance next month as if he was the hero of a thrilling love romance to be continued in our next. A peculiarity about Bob — the exceptional ease with which he adapted himself to the circumstances, ■of his respective callings, renders this disjointed style of narrative as necessary as it is convenient. I would defy anyone to write Bob's life-story, for it simply was not a story, but a distinct series, each part complete in itself. His whole life was ordered in sections, and his love affairs naturally followed suit. Each new employment gave him a new idea of the sort of girl he would like to marry, and he wasn't the man to have an idea without takino- some preliminary steps towards cm'ryin>- it out. 1, for one, did not blame him. The difficulty of the position was obvious. It was next

to impossible to Jincl a girl who could take an interest in the whole wonderful range of Bob's occupations, and a wife who takes no interest in her husband's affairs is really not worth having. 1 once asked Bob if it was not rather a bore, after he had made good running with one girl, to have to begin again at the beginning with another. He replied with his usual calm adaptation to circumstances that he had never found it any trouble, girls seemed to take to him, somehow 7 . But you know, old man/" he added, " I shall really stick to the one I'm after now. None of the others anything like came up to Lily !" This statement was not a premeditated falsehood, he really believed it himself at the time, but J did not. It is not my purpose to set in order all my mental notes on Bob's numberless occupations and give them in classified form as they followed one another. This would entail too much toil. I choose rather to give those few examples of which the details come to the surface most freely at the time of Avriting. Bob always said it was wonderful how one billet led on to another. He had insured the life of a Loan Company's station - manager by praising the breeding of his sheep and his skill at breaking in back

country. The manager was so pleased at Bob's discrimination and manifest clearness of judgement, that a month or two later he wrote Bob that he had been promoted to the position of Inspector of a lot of properties the Loan Company had acquired by mortgages tumbling in, and that he wanted a few smart young fellows to manage them. He promised Bob a show if he felt inclined. Bob accepted on the spot. The salary was not munificent, but as he got a house free, and everything found, from the house-keeper down to the newspaper, he was wild with delight about it. It is true that there were a few little matters not quite as he would have liked them, but they were mere midges in the ointment, it would have been gross exaggeration to call them flies. Perhaps the one Bob found most noticeable was the age of the housekeeper. She worried him rather by wanting to be a mother to him, and fussing round generally. But Bob put up with it fairly well, especially when her fussiness developed into a fixed idea that he was delicate, and that his life depended on his having tempting dishes set i.efore him. How this idea could have possibly occurred to her passes comprehension, but it was chronic, and Bob certainly took no pains to make it otherwise. It will doubtless be a matter of surprise to many that Bob could possibly know enough about stock to keep a manager" s billet after he had got it, and more so perhaps that the Inspector should have appointed a life insurance canvasser to such a position. But has not our worthy Premier given us numberless instances of much more glaringly incongruous appointments to yet more important positions ? But few of these perform their new duties as satisfactorily as Bob did his, for although friend Bob was a typical " Jack of all trades/ he certainly did not belong to the " master-of-none " variety. More-

over, he had taken care to impress on his employer the fact that he had had considerable experience on a farm. He did not consider it necessary to add that it was in his callow youth and in the humble capacity of cow-boy and shepherdlad to a forty-acre cockatoo. There was also another tiling to he taken into consideration : luck always befrier.ded Bob, he was constantly getting a reputation for smartness on very slender grout: ds. I will give one out of numberless instances. The Inspector had been round and ordered Bob to sell a flock of seven hundred merino wethers. They had been bought by the previous owner of the place to fatten, and five hundred of them were good mutton, the balance were decidedly scraggy brutes that would never put on flesh, and should not have been bought. The Inspector gave Bob strict orders to draft them at the sale yards, and sell them in separate lots, so that the scrubbers would not spoil the sale of the fats. Bob replied that he would, and started to drive the sheep the ten miles to the sale yards before daylight in order to vet to the drafting yards in time. But to his disgust, when he got there, he found the yards overflowing. H was the sole of the year. The wise men had taken their sheep there the night before. He could not even get a pen to put his sheep in, but had to hold them up in a corner of the sale paddock. There was not the slightest chance of drafting out the obnoxious two hundred ; the only thing to be done was to keep them as much in the background as possible. In due time the auctioneer came to Bob's lot. " Now, gentlemen, here's a prime lot of merino wethers." Bob groaned inwardly. " How much for them — 700 in the lot— take the pick of a hundred or more/ To Bob's deliyht the bidding was brisk. Two rival 'butchers, who were deadly enemies, went at it

hammer and tongs, each determined the other shouldn't have them. At last they were knocked down at fully half-a-crown a head over Bob's wildest anticipation. The successful bidder took live hundred. " Now for the balance !" cried the auctioneer. " Row much for the other two hundred, after this man's had his pick ?" " Hix shillings !" cried a well-known dealer, who had evidently imbibed too freely. Bob was amazed. At the price sheep were then, he had not expected more than half-a-crown. There was not another bid, and the lot was knocked down. The next time the Inspector visited Bob, he asked whether he had drafted the sheep before selling. Bob replied no in a mournful voice, and gave the reason. " You ought to have had them down the night before, you lazy beggar. The next time you disobey my particular instructions, you go. Of course you chucked them away selling them in a lump. What did they realise ?" '* How much ought I to have got for them, sir ?" asked Bob. "' Well, the 500 fats should have fetched, if properly drafted, seven-and-six, and the scrubbers, say half-a-crown/' returned the Inspector irritably. " I'm hanged if I don't think my way was the best, after all !" remarked Bob calmly. " 1 got ten shillings for the fats, and six for the scrubbers !" '* Well, Bob, T wouldn't have believed it. 1 see 1 can't teach you any points about selling sheep, so I'll say no more about it." Bob was very glad he did not, for he knew very well that the Inspector was right, and it was only the luck of meeting two quarrelling butchers and a drunken dealer that had enabled him to score. Although Bob was generally stationed on the one farm, he was often sent to take over other properties, which were continually falling into the rapacious maw of the

great money lending company he represented. This, Bob said, went sorely against his grain. He wasn't built for a pawnbroker's bailiff. Still, the work had to be done, and Bob did it, although he frankly admitted that in little matters left to his own discretion, he often studied the interests of the outgoing occupants more than those of his employers. But, fearful perhaps of acquiring too much credit for his humanity, he added — especially when there were any pretty girls in the family. His darling Lily, referred to above, was a case in point. Her father knew nothing whatever about farming, but the ambition of his life was to be a large landed proprietor. He had bought an exceedingly rich little farm of some 'M\{) or 400 acres, but not satisfied with this, he mortgaged it to the Loan Company, and spent the money in purchasing another farm, mortgaged that to buy a third, and so on. By bad management he made such a muddle of his affairs that the Company took his property over, lock, stock and barrel, to save themselves from loss. Bob was sent over to take possession, and instructed that, as the Company did not wish to be too hard on a good customer, he might make them a present of a hundred pounds worth of their own furniture and went about the business with a effects, but not a cent more. Bob heavy heart.

The family did not give him a very warm reception when he arrived, but lie was not in the house half-an-hour before he was on excellent terms with Lily, the eldest daughter. The rest of the family soon realised that Bob was not half a bad fellow, and that it could not by any stretch of the imagination be said to be his fault that they had come to crief, so they treated him courteously, and he assured me that he never had a better time in his life than during- the fortnight that he was empowered to give them to quit. He added some sentimental

nonsense about love's young dream, and Lily's unsurpassable charms, but 1 promptly told him to switch that off. To fill in the time he helped them pack, and it is scarcely necessary to add that the hundred pounds worth of effects they took away would have realised considerably over 200 per cent, profit, to say nothing" about the old man's pet hack, which Bob would persist in declaring belonged to Lily, notwithstanding- the denial of the whole family. It is true, Bob got dismissed for his leniency, but that did not trouble him a jot, he said he had meant to leave in any case. He had a better thing in view, as usual. During his journeying for the Company he had heard of a snug little grazing farm that the owner wanted to let at a rental at which he was confident it was a bargain. He took it forthwith, moved the family to it, and appointed himself as managing partner. Jt was near an important agricultural centre where periodical stock sales were held, and; .Bob decided to start as a dealer. He made friends with the auctioneer and succeeded in getting excellent credit, provided all stock were sold through him, This was pre-eminently necessary, for Bob's cash resources were exceptionally limited. Bob brought business ability and luck to the family he had befriended — two things they needed sorely. He bought cattle and sheep whenever there was a slack sale, and sold ao-ain whenever a profit could be made, which was fairly frequently. He strongly suspected that the friend ly auctioneer frequently knocked down bargains to him when higher bids would have been forthcoming- if they had 'been given time. But he never complained on this score. He said he did not like to make such an aspersion on the auctioneer's professional reputation : it might have hurt his feelings. He bought likely-looking young horses, taught them to jump, and got Lily,

who was a splendid horsewoman, to show them oft' at open-air coursing meetings, and sold them as lady'shacks and hunters. The deal he prided himself on most, however, was one wherein he got the better of his old friend the inspector. It was all fair and above-board. Bob would ha>ve scorned to take a mean advantage of anyone who had once befriended him. it was before he left his old employment that he made the purchase. The Inspector was furious. He had had two spills while galloping his horse about a stony plain for an hour or more trying to yard a refractory cream-coloured hack on a new place Bob had just taken over. Bob had offered to do it if the Inspector would lend him his horse, as he knew the wily tricks of the unruly animal, and was moreover a much better stock-rider, he said he could have done it in ten minutes, and had occasion to prove it afterwards. But the Inspector did not believe in allowing anyone to mount his pet nag if he could help it. It irritated him still more to see how easily Bob ran the brute in when he was obliged to hand the job over to him after failing himself. When the horse was caught and saddled, and Bob mounted, the Inspector declared that a horse like that wanted hanging. He was worse than useless on a place. The time and horseflesh wasted running him in must be something atrocious. " Don't have him hanged," interposed Bob mildly, "' I'll give you a liver for him." " Right, you can have the brute, only keep him out of my sight !" Bob obeyed this condition literally, for a short time afterwards a friend of his in another part of the country wrote asking him if he could buy him a good cream-colour-ed buggy-horse to match one he had. He was willing to give £25 for a good match, any day. Bob knew his friend's horse, and had been struck with the similarity of the

two. They were as like as two peas. The one he had, had never been in harness, but that didn't trouble Bob. He popped him in a sledge with an old plough-horse, and had him quietly broken to the collar in no time. He had tJso, by petting and quiet handling, made him so that he would catch him in the paddock with a Lit of corn any time. He got the £25, and his friend the horse, and both were equally pleased. Bob did not confine himself to doing all the business of his new firm. He enthused the whole family and kept them interested. For the old lady and the girls he started a poultry department on a large scale. Some time before Christmas he had heard that store geese would be a good spec as they were going to be scarce. Bob was always great at miscellaneous information. He alarmed Lily and her mother by scouring the country buying all he could lay his hands on, and bringing them home in scores for them to fatten. Waste grain was cheap, and other products of the farm could be thus utilized. Bob's information proved right, prices ruled high, and their geese were the phimpest on the market. The old man found plenty to do, His ambition to be a large landowner had disappeared with the old place and the load of mortgages. His mind was easy, and he recognised that contentment was better than riches. During the months that followed, Lily's eldest brother, who worshipped Bob, was learning all he could about successful buying and selling. This was lucky, for though Bob often declared at the time that he had at last hit on the chance of his life, he had a sort of inner consciousness that something better might turn up, and he hated to feel tied in any way to one occu-

pation. He would not have left the whole family in the lurch on any account, so he was very pleased to notice that Dick had taken him for a model in some respects, knowing; that the farm would prosper should he feel compelled to leave. It may be here observed that Bob like many other mortals was very severe on others who had his special failing. He was most particular to impress on Dick the great advantage of a young," man, after finding out what calling" best suited him, sticking" to it through thick and thin, and aiming incessantly at attaining" success without turning to the right or left. Dick, having fortunately known Bob only in his present capacity, took heed to the lesson, thinking that a rule which had made his hero what he considered him, the finest fellow on earth, was certainly the one of all others to follow. Knowing Bob's erratic nature as I did, 1 was not surprised to hear on my next visit to that part of the country, that even Lily's charms had not been strong enough to hold him. He had gone to the North Island to join a friend in a whaling expedition. I was pleased to hear that he had acted o-enerous-ly in the dissolution of the partnership in the farm, and perhaps more so to find that Lily had not been left lamenting, as I gathered from a strictly impartial source that that lively young lady had as versatile a fancy in some respects as Bob himself. She had an absent lover, it now appeared, and thought it no harm to keep her hand in with Bob till he returned. Whether Bob had found this, out or not, I never heard. Tn any case it would have made little difference to him. Reason or no reason he was bound to be off, when his restless nature gave him the call.