The Argosy, Vol. 81, No. 4 — page 186: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

752 THE credit at Honolulu, and the sharps on the racetrack at Randwick yesterday got the little the guys on the boat left. I was counting on this draft, an’ played them the limit yesterday’ When I found my pocket- book gone with all the money, I was just knocked stiff. But can’t we—?”. “Cut out that whimper stuff, Harding, I’m in no mood to listen to the yarn again. The money’s gone, and we’re up against it good and hard. It’s one chance in a hun- dred the police ’ll get a line on the bird that did you up. What with a few lucky nights on board, I have about five hundred dol- lars, and that’s got to last us till we make good. “God knows what. our present partner- ship’s going to lead to. Before to-day it was your money and my brains. Now you're a passenger, but I can’t shake you, you good-for-nothing little cuss, you’re too helpless to shake; it ud be like child-deser- tion.” The young fellow on the bed, Harding, made a gesture of gratitude, and his face sensibly expressed something like hero-wor- ship for the big personality that could ex- press affection even while it admonished. “Look here, Jim,” he said, “I’ll cut out racing and cards. There must be some- thing in a country like this for us, and if trying will do it—” ‘““Now, see here, Bunny, we’ll wait for the New Year before we start the resolutions. We've got something else to do just now. I’m not going over the story of my past life, and I’m not in the sob picture game, but when I left the States, I made up my mind that a fellow that can live by his wits can also live by his brains, and in some business worth while, too. “My father was a gentleman, and tried to make me one. He failed, but I managed to get a smattering of the externals, even to the education. I shied at the rest, and be- came a slangy, free-an’-easy fellow, content to be admired by those miles below what I could have been, ’stead of trying my luck with my equals, and beating them to some- thing worth while. “You know what living by my wits led to. You ought to, for you lived by them too, till you got that lucky windfall that brought us to Australia. I reckoned this new country and your roll would see us both going straight, in a straight business, and kinder disappoint the folks over home looking for me to come a mucker and giving ARGOSY. them the satisfaction of saying, I told you so. There’s plenty of opportunity here. Hang it, can’t they see I’m fighting to make good, without skinning suckers?” His voice was bitter, as he rose, and seemed to fill the little room with his bulk. He leaned out of the window, idly scanning the electric signs of this Queen City of the Antipodes. ‘Look here, Bunny,” he said presently, ‘I’m sick of this room, of you, and of the rotten subject of our woes. There’s a little bit of the United States outside these win- dows, and a few shillings out of our rem- nants won’t make or break us. Come on out and see the place. You’ve only seen a racecourse since we landed, and I’ve been all day in real estate offices, snooping after property. “You remember Fred Niblo, don’t you? Married Georgy Cohan’s sister? Well, he’s in town playing ‘Wallingford,’ and that’s good United States, and in my old line. Come on out, and have a laugh. Sorry I was raw, just now. ‘There’s nothing to worry about, after all. Darn it, I can make five thousand in a couple of days, if I like to resume business at the old stand. Why, Bunny son, cheer up, you look ‘all in.’”? While speaking, Cochrane was strug- gling into his overcoat, for a drizzling rain had set in, and in a couple of minutes he and Harding were ready for the street. Their hotel had been chosen for its cheap- ness in the first throes of a resolution to economize, until they had increased the five thousand-odd that constituted their -joint capital into something that would run to white lights and joy. Walking the block or two to the theater, Cochrane talked the gloomy Bunny into something like his own state of careless good humor. Above all things an opportun- ist, he rarely let present misfortune usurp the thoughts needed for planning future campaigns, and his mind, ever keen to plot and plan, was equally ready to seize the hour when it came bearing/the opportunity. As they laughed and applauded, through- out the play, it would have been difficult for the observer to recognize in them two soldiers of fortune who had been cut off from their base, surrounded by the enemy, painfully short of ammunition, and con- fronted by the necessity of fighting, or only by the keenest strategy making their escape. The play over, Bunny had seemingly forgotten his troubles. He was very young, ECORNICLOOOKS (C@