A winter night, with a thick fog rising above the Sandridge marshes, and spreading itself over the city of Melbourne. People released from toil were hurrying home to tea and a pleasant fireside. Others, who neither toil nor spin, and had no home or fireside, glided slowly and noiselessly through the mist like ghosts, or stood shivering before the damp window-panes or lit-up shops and dining-rooms, feasting their hungry eyes on the good things within.
Business in the city was very dull, and money very scarce. Money is scarce at all times with a great many mortals, I am aware, but the present depression was felt everywhere throughout the colony.
Tom Brock, the barber, standing in his little shop at the corner of Gertrude Street Fitzroy, felt the hardness of the times as keenly as any member of the community, inasmuch as Tom had a large family of growing children to provide for, and customers had been anything but numerous of late. Indeed, the poor shaver was beginning to think that the primeval fashion of suffering the hair and beard to grow in wild luxuriance on the heads and faces of his race had become the order of the day, and from henceforth he could exclaim with Shakespeare’s gallant Moor—“Othello’s occupation’s gone.”
On this winter night the barber was alone in his shop, busy stropping his razors for want of more lucrative employment. Like most of his craft, Tom Brock was a great talker. It was part and parcel of his stock-in-trade; and, by the way, it is wonderful to note upon what a variety of subjects barbers can talk. Our hero was no exception to the rule in this respect. Having no one in the place to engage in conversation, he ceased stropping, and gazing into the large mirror opposite, addressed himself to what he saw there with charming irony in his tone.
“You’re a handsome fellow, Tom Brock, a very pretty fellow indeed. Only I’m afraid looks won’t go for much in this case. Here you are from eight o’clock this morning, and you’ve almost earned one and sixpence, according to the multiplication table. Just fancy this grand sum of eighteen pence per diem, sir, for the maintenance of eleven persons—father, mother, and nine young Brocks, whose appetites this cold weather are something to astonish Soyer the Frenchman. Don’t smile at me, sir; I’m in no humour for jesting. Humph! how foolish to try and quarrel with one’s shadow! Yet I’ve known men do that, before to-night.”
He settled himself down with a sigh in the easy chair, and crossed his legs one over the other. “I wonder if the portrait and the superscription of Her Majesty the Queen is still upon the coinage of this realm?” continued the barber, speaking at the image in the mirror. “It’s such a time since I handled a golden coin that, upon my life, I almost forget what they are like; perhaps that is the reason why I feel such an uncontrollable desire to look upon one at this moment. Nay, not one, but several—in short, several hundreds. Pooh, what rubbish you’re talking, Tom Brock, you penniless rascal!”
The poor barber smiled at the idea of the thing, and the fellow in the mirror smiled in company. “Ready cash is a very handy thing to have at one’s command, especially when it is urgently needed, as in my case,” said Tom, looking sternly at his reflection. “I’ve often heard fellows sneer at money, and call it strange names; yet I’ve noted that these same revilers were always mighty eager to gather it in when they have had an opportunity. Moreover, I——”
“ ‘SHAVE, OR HAIR CUT, SIR?’ ASKED THE BARBER.”
Brock the barber paused suddenly in his soliloquy; for he beheld within the radius of the looking-glass another form besides the reflection of himself. A little man, with a peculiar cast of face and features, stood behind the chair, with his arms akimbo, and his old-looking head on one side, listening greedily to the barber’s utterances.
“Good-evening, sir,” said Tom, starting to his feet. “Cold night?”
The little man only grinned like a monkey in reply.
“Shave, or hair cut, sir?” asked the barber, rubbing his lean hands with professional expectancy.
“Shave?” echoed the customer in a voice like a croaking raven. “Do I look as if I wanted shaving? No man shall take me by the nose, and I know you can’t shave without doing that.”
“No offence, sir. Shall I cut your hair?”
“Yes, Tom Brock. Cut it short, very short.” And the wee fellow chuckled heartily as he divested himself of a cloak, in which he had been wrapped from head to heel, and seated himself in the chair before the mirror. The new-comer, although very small for his age, was quite cool and self-possessed. He gave all manner of directions respecting the mode in which he required his hair trimmed, made faces at the glass, and laughed at the grimaces reflected there.
Tom Brock had had many queer customers during the twelve years he had been in business, but he had never seen such a quaint, small mite of a man as this one before him. In fixing the wrapper about his shoulders Tom could scarcely repress an exclamation of surprise at the colour and texture of his companion’s apparel. Of what material were they composed—cloth, tweed, silk, cotton? No; mortal warp or weft never manufactured such fabrics. Some other agency—subtle and mysterious as many unexplained things we see around us—had perchance woven these articles. For in this lower world there are cloaks much less substantial than a fairy’s jerkin—cloaks for which Dr. Johnson and his followers have been unable to find a name, but which are indispensable to many of us in our daily lives.
Had the barber been less engaged in taking stock of the manner and appearance of his strange customer, he might have discovered at once that to shorten this fellow’s hair was an utter impossibility, for as fast as the keen scissors severed the long, yellow locks the particles became instantly attached again. The barber’s eyes were too intent watching the grimaces in the mirror to observe the startling fact.
“Been long in the colony, sir?” insinuated he, by way of opening a conversation.
The wee man chuckled mightily, and narrowly escaped having a portion of his ear severed by the barber’s sharp scissors.
“I know the colony, Tom Brock,” he replied. “No one better. Ha, ha!”
The hairdresser was staggered, but he came again to the charge.
“Beautiful hair, yours, sir, fine and soft as silk. It doesn’t seem to be much shorter, after all I’ve cut off.”
“Cut it short, Tom. Ho, ho, ho!”
“Very dull times, sir,” said Tom, not relishing his customer’s disagreeable laugh.
“It’s very dull indeed for you, Tom Brock,” answered the wee man, with a knowing leer.
“Why for me, sir?”
“Because the lease of your shop expires next Monday, Tom, and you haven’t a penny saved to renew it. That’s why,” responded the customer quietly.
Some people when they are astonished can be tumbled over with a feather, but it would have taken a blow from a large stick to have knocked our hero down. He appeared rooted to the boards, and his eyes and mouth opened considerably.
“Very good, sir. You’re a wizard. Perhaps you have no objection to tell me what I had for dinner to-day!” ejaculated Tom, when he found the use of his tongue.
“Not in the least. You hadn’t anything, my friend. Your mind was not upon eating to-day, but rather the consideration of where boots for the children are to come from—a bonnet for Mrs. B. likewise, the cash for your business, eh? Care has taken away your appetite, Tom. Ha, ha! I know. No one knows better than Thimble. That’s me.”
The comb and scissors fell from the barber’s hand to the floor.
“Want to know anything else, Tom Brock?” asked the visitor.
“Nothing more, thank ye,” replied the barber in a bewildered tone.
“Listen to me, then.” And the little fellow faced about in the chair. “I am Baron Thimble, of Faydell Twilight. Ours is a vast kingdom in the centre of Australia, of which very little is known by man. The Anglo-Saxon has penetrated into every corner of the known globe, and thrust his inquisitive nose into the socket of the North Pole, but he has never set foot in the land of Twilight. Now I need your services, Tom Brock, and if you will promise to go with me, I will reward you handsomely.”
“Twilight,” repeated Brock thoughtfully. “I never heard mention of such a country before.”
“I trow not,” replied Baron Thimble, smiling. “Nevertheless, it is a great realm, whose people have often visited these cities, reared on the sea border. Thou art poor, and in need, and faith, I repeat, I have need of thee.”
“How long will you require me?”
“For just one moon. No more.”
“And the reward?” inquired Tom eagerly.
“Two hundred golden coins.”
“Thank you, I am at your service. Stop! Is Twilight far away, Baron Thimble?”
“Yes, but our conveyance will be swift and safe. Thou wilt go?”
“With the greatest pleasure, sir.”
“Enough! Here are one hundred sovereigns in part payment of my promise.” And the Twilight nobleman drew forth a heavy purse and counted the money into the barber’s palm. “Go home at once and bank the money with thy wife; then meet me afterwards on the right bank of the river Yarra, beyond the Lunatic Asylum. You understand?”
And the Baron, chuckling to himself, folded his poncho about his person, and strode out at the doorway.
Tom Brock could hardly believe but that the whole affair had been a joke. There lay the money, though. That was real enough. And he felt it was no joke to have it in his possession. So he packed up his shaving appliances in a bag, closed his shop, and went home to his better half.