CHAPTER XII
ALEC AND HUEY START BUSINESS
THE next week saw Alec fairly started on a Randwick tram, with an assistant recommended as clerk by Old Sam. As his pouch was devoid of any money but small silver, he had been provided by the provident old gentleman with a twenty pound note, good enough to look at, but not readily changeable at any bank. With this he was to bluff inquirers for their money if the first race went against him.
“No man,” said Old Sam, “will bustle you for his money if you ask him to change twenty quid. In the first place, it is not likely he has got change, and even if he has, he will be extra soft if he would care to do it on Randwick flat.”
The note, however, was not wanted, and was duly handed back. The day had been skilfully chosen. Alec returned to the Coffee Palace as proud as a hen with a new clutch, with £47 10s. in his pocket. This with childish pride he displayed to Huey.
“Better than wood-cutting, sonny!”
That week all the newspapers that would insert the advertisement on credit contained the following—
“THE TINMAN,
Pronounced by all the prince of turf prophets. The only man in the Colonies that gave three straight-out winners for the last Caulfield meeting; five firsts and two seconds for Randwick, and a record for the year never approached in turf history. We have as good as ever for future events.
“Try the Tinman; Tinman, the turf guide. Tinman is not lucky; Tinman acts on information. Agents all over the Colonies. Tinman is a moral. Why throw your money away on stiff ’uns when you can get the office for a crown, straight as a wire, from the Tinman.
Box ABC, G.P.O.”
The fruit of this “rot,” as Huey denominated the above par that he had inserted at the old man’s directions, astounded him. Letters with money rained on him—in small amounts, it is true; still it rained, and the shower was received as manna from Heaven.
* * * * *
During all these days, and long after prosperity had come to them, the two young men were nightly frequenters of the Golden Bar—partly to see the girl they were now both madly in love with, and partly to watch each other.
What was maddening to Huey was that he could make no claim to any special preference shown to himself. Bertha always received him pleasantly, and seemed to appreciate him and understand his point of view, as no other girl he had ever met had done; but the mischief of it was, that her manner to many other persons, Alec, for example, was equally gracious. Particularly to Alec, who was always full of small talk, arrant nonsense for the most part, that Huey disdained, even as he watched with jealous eyes the success of his rival.
Unfortunately for Huey, he was endowed with an imagination, and he saw Bertha not only as she was, a pretty, emotional, pleasure-loving girl, but also as an exalted personage, gifted with all those virtues and talents that formed his mute ideal. And to see her pandering in a public bar to the coarse jokes of fools was to him a mental torture. He did not for a moment doubt that they two were far superior to all about them, and as he recognized her superiority, so he felt in all justice she should recognize his.
Alec, on the contrary, had no imagination at all worth speaking of. To him Bertha was a fine girl, or, as he had learned to express it, “A damned fine girl;” and he said it and thought it in the same tone, as though he were speaking of a horse of great merit or a prize cow. His talk with her, and, for that matter, with every one else, was always on what Theosophists term the “material plane.” And if she responded freely it was perhaps because women of her nature have the art to appear sympathetic to every one they desire to please.
Between the two young men the person of Bertha was never mentioned; but there was a silent acknowledgment of rivalry, a silent determination on each side to have the prize, and a certainty with each that no hope was possible without a big bank balance.
“If I only had twenty thousand pounds I’d marry you to-morrow,” cried out Alec, in a half-jesting, half-serious tone to Bertha.
“If!” was all Bertha replied, as she smiled.
And Huey sat by and listened and ground his teeth, as he also wished that he had the like sum. But he did not blurt out his wishes in a coarse way like Alec—“Curse him!”
The first use Alec made of his freshly acquired income was to buy a rich bracelet and present it to Bertha. This she declined, but consented to go for a drive with him on the following Sunday.
Huey, for his part, put his savings in the bank as a nest-egg towards the twenty thousand pounds—not that he did not think a few thousands less than that amount would be sufficient.
On the following Sunday Huey was seated near to Lady Macquarie’s chair, talking to Soft Sam, when he was astounded to see amongst the traps and buggies doing the round Alec and Bertha in a sulky side by side. Alec gave a wave with his whip hand as he flashed past, but it was only Soft Sam that responded.
“That young fellow seems to be making the pace pretty hot,” said Sam.
“I knew the girl first,” was all Huey could answer.
“Then why didn’t you stick to her, man? A filly is always such an uncertain kind of animal. You want to yard and brand them on the jump, so to speak, when you have made up your mind to run them in. No man understands women till he has no further use of the information. There is not one in a hundred of them is any good till they are thoroughly broken in, and whether they are worth the trouble I very much doubt. Did you ever tell the girl you wanted her?”
“No,” said Huey.
“Then why don’t you if you think that way? Any girl is to be had for the asking if you go the right way about it. Praise them up; you can’t put it on too thick. Keep at ’em all the time, and be as deaf as a post to all they say that does not suit you. And don’t you go away thinking this girl is different to other girls; that is where I have seen smarter chaps than you make the mistake. All girls are alike, as alike as two peas. Of course they vary outside, and have different styles with them, but the bed-rock, so to speak, is the same all the time. But if you take my advice, which I know you won’t—young fellows never do—you will just leave the girls alone for a year or two. They spoil more men for business, and get more of them into trouble, than anything else.”
And then the old man launched forth into reminiscences of all the promising men he had known go to the dogs after petticoats. But Huey did not attend, his mind was agitating wilds plans of what he should say and what he should do when he next met Alec and Bertha.
And the day for him was a horror, the park a desolation, and through the yellow of his eyes the whole world out of joint.
* * * * *
The two barmaids at the Golden Bar were taking things easily. It was a dull hour of the day for business, and Bertha’s turn off. They were pretty girls, these two barmaids, Sarah Jones (nom de guerre, Ruby), and Maria Simpson (nom de guerre, Florence), and they were well, even richly dressed, and, for their work, well-mannered.
For the Golden Bar was no common public-house or speculation in immorality, but a commercial undertaking for providing the best of everything in the best way at the best prices. And to choose the three prettiest barmaids he could find was part of the proprietor’s project.
Ruby was languidly polishing a glass that did not want it, on the off chance that the Boss should come in and find her doing nothing. Florence was similarly occupied.
“I’m getting about tired of this place,” said Ruby.
“So am I,” yawned Florence.
“It was not so bad before Bertha came; one could have a bit of fun and get a few presents. But she is downright mean. She grabs everybody.”
“That’s it. She grabs everybody, and what they see in her I can’t think. With her snub nose and fish eyes, and the airs she gives herself, one would fancy she was really what some of the chaps call her, ‘the Queen of Sydney.’ Now, there is that old squatter from Way-back, I had him as safe as possible till this creature came.”
“I know you had, dear, and I saw that same man offer her this morning a diamond ring worth fifty pounds if it was worth a penny. And she would not even take it.”
“I wish he would try me, I’d take it fast enough. But that is the way with that sly minx. She will not take things herself, and prevents others. Who is she, to put on airs? I suppose she is holding out to make a big haul.”
“I tell you what I think,” exclaimed Florence; “we are just wasting ourselves here, taking my lady’s leavings! We might as well be two old scarecrows for all the chance we get! And the way she makes up is something scandalous! Why, I’m sure half her figure comes away when she strips. A little powder, I don’t say, or a pull-back, but when it comes to getting inside a dressmaker’s dummy and walking about with that, I say it’s a fraud!”
“But men are so stupid. They just run after her because she looks at them out of her eyes with the look of a dying cat! Look at those two young sporting fellows that come here every night. Any one can see they are gone soft on her, and she had the cheek to go out driving with one of them yesterday.”
“You don’t say!”
“As bold as you please—that one they call Alec.”
“Well, I never!”
The talk was interrupted by the entrance of Bertha.
“Good-evening, my dear,” said Ruby; “how nicely your hair is arranged to-day. I wish you’d show me the way, there’s a love!”
Florrie came forward, also to inspect, and kissed Bertha as a darling to make her promise to teach the secret of the new coiffure.
“You are in luck, Bertha, going out for buggy rides. Not that that young Alec is much of a catch. I should look for something better if I were you.”
“My troubles!” said Bertha.
Soon the bar began to fill, and Alec came in with his shadow, Huey. Bertha greeted them both with a friendly nod, but the first opportunity Huey came to the bar and spoke to her some low angry words. His eyes fairly blazed. But Bertha merely tossed her head.
“I can mind my own business, and you had best mind yours. Thank you all the same, Mr. Gosper!”
Then Huey retired to a corner and sulked, while Bertha smiled on his rival and other customers with her uniform blandness.
If Soft Sam had been at his side he would have urged Huey to start a desperate flirtation with either Ruby or Florrie, and to have ignored Bertha for the time as one dead. But Huey had no cunning in maiden wiles and maiden fence, and was hit, palpably hit, at the first parade. But as days passed the cloud blew over, blew over so far that later on Huey himself drove Bertha down to Botany.
And so, in the mutual rivalry, honours were easy.