Such Is Life Joseph Furphy (ebook reader screen .TXT) 📖

pass muster unless it went of its own accord⁠—would it? Perpetual motion’s a thing I’ve been giving my attention to lately. You remember you advised me to study mechanics? Well, I’ve been thinking of arranging a clock so as to wind itself up as it went on. That’s one idea. Another is a little more complicated. It’s a waterwheel, driving a pump that throws a stream into the race that feeds the waterwheel, so that you use the same water over and over again, and the whole concern’s self-acting. The idea came into my head like an inspiration. Mind, I’m telling you in confidence, for there’s a thousand notes hanging on to it.”

“Moriarty,” said I sadly; “you’re worse than ever. Try something else. You’re not a born mechanician.”

“If I’m not, I’d like to know who the devil is?” replied the young fellow hotly. “Possibly, your own self? Wasn’t my father a foreman in one of the largest machine-shops in Victoria, in his day? I know what’s the matter with you. Jealousy.”

“It must be so. Plato, thou reasonest well,” said I hopelessly. “But supposing you are a born mechanician, you have neither the theoretical nor the practical training. Do you know for instance, the use of the brass slide you often see on a carpenter’s rule?”

“Of course I do! Why I could calculate with that slide before I was ten years old.”

One to Moriarty. I should have remembered that his abnormal breadth across the temples qualified him to do a sum in his head, in ten seconds, that I couldn’t do on a slate in ten hours, nor for that matter, in ten years. No accounts in Riverina were better kept than those of Runnymede.

“Good, so far,” I replied benevolently. “But how much do you know of prismoidal formulae, or logarithmic secants?⁠—not to speak of segmental ordinates, or the cycloidal calculus; or even of adiabatic expansion, or torsional resistance, or the hydrostatic paradox, or the coefficient of friction? Now, these things are the very A.B.C. of mechanics, as you’ll find to your utter confusion.”

Moriarty’s countenance fell; but happening to glance at the performing flies, he laughed himself weak and empty. “Just look at the beggars,” he murmured, wiping his eyes.

“Business first,” said I. “How about my scandal?”

“It’s going grand!” replied Moriarty, beaming with new pleasure. “I carried out your suggestions to the letter. First, I took Mooney and Nelson into my confidence; and we arranged to meet accidentally, one evening after dusk, under that willow beside her bedroom. At last we sat down, with our backs against the weatherboard wall, and talked about⁠—”

“Day, chaps,” said a stranger, appearing at the door of the store. “Got any pickles in stock, Moriarty?”

“Lots. Half-a-crown a bottle.”

“Say three bottles,” replied the stranger, seating himself on the counter. “And⁠—let’s see⁠—a pound of tobacco; a dozen of matches; a tin of baking-powder; and a couple of hobble-chains. I’ll make that do till I get as far as Hay. My chaps are squealing for pickles,” he continued, turning to me. “I didn’t know you at the first glance. Your name’s Collins⁠—isn’t it? You might remember me passing by you last spring, a few miles back along the track here, where you’d been helping Steve Thompson and a big, gipsy-looking fellow to load up some wool on a Sydney-pattern wagon? So that chestnut was a stolen horse, after all. Smart bit of work. Another devil of a season⁠—isn’t it? I’ve been trying to shift 900 head of forward stores from Mamarool to Vic.; but I advised the owner to give it best, though it was money out of my pocket, when I had none in it to begin with. Managed to arrange for them on Wooloomburra till the winter comes on.”

Whilst speaking, he had opened his knife and removed the capsule and cork from one of the bottles of pickles; then, after drinking some of the vinegar out of the way, he began harpooning the contents of the bottle, and eating them with a relish that was pleasant to see.

I made a suitable reply, whilst Moriarty, having made up his order, noted the items and price on the paper which contained the tobacco.

“I see Alf Jones is gone, Moriarty,” I remarked, after a pause⁠—the stranger being occupied with his pickles. “Wisest thing he could do.”

“Foolishest thing he could do,” replied the storekeeper. “Nosey was a fixture on Runnymede; he was one of Montgomery’s pets; and if he thinks he can better that in Australia, he’s got a lot to learn. And what a hurry he was in, to get out of the best billet he’ll ever have, poor beggar! with his shyness and his disfigurement. But he’s been on the pea, like a good many more. Let’s see⁠—it was just the day after you went away that he came to Montgomery, and said he must go. That’ll be six or eight weeks ago now. Montgomery went a lot out of his way to persuade him to stop, but it was no use; he was like a hen on a hot griddle till he got away. Decent chap, too; and, by gosh! can’t he sing and play! We found afterward that he had given his books to the station library, with the message that we were to think kindly of him when he was gone. I felt sort of melancholy to see him drifting away to beggary, with his fiddle-case across the front of his saddle, and his spare horse in his hand. He knew no more where he was going than the man in the moon.”

“Don’t you believe it,” I replied. “These cranky fellows have always sane spots in their heads; and Alf is particularly lucky in that respect. There’s not above two⁠—or, at the most, three⁠—lobes of that fellow’s brain in bad working order. Just you watch the weekly papers, and you’ll get news of him in his proper sphere. He’s gone to Sydney, or perhaps Melbourne, to do something better than boundary riding.”

“No; he’s gone to Western