Part 14 (1/2)

A sound of liquid flowing into a gla.s.s was balm to the s.h.i.+pping reporter of the _Morning Light_.

'Try this. It's a drop of the best.'

The man of letters--s.h.i.+ps' letters, sipped it with the air of a connoisseur.

'Splendid stuff, doctor, splendid,' he said.

'That poem has cost me many hours' deep thought,' said Dr Tom.

'No doubt. It is an elegant composition.'

'I wonder if the _Morning Light_ would publish it,' mildly suggested the doctor. 'Here, try another; it will do you no harm.'

'I'll ask our sub; he's not a bad sort. He might cram it into the weekly,' said the reporter.

The doctor looked crestfallen.

'The weekly,' he said sorrowfully. 'Surely it is worthy of a place in the daily.'

'It is, doctor. Upon my word, it is; but you know what they are in the office. They're death on poems. It would be risking my place to suggest it for the daily.'

Dr Tom jingled the gla.s.ses, and there was something in them when the sound ceased.

'Try your best,' said Dr Tom. 'I'll give you a couple of real good startling pars about this voyage if you'll get it in the daily.'

'And you'll not tell the other fellows?'

'No. I'll not breathe a word to 'em,' said Dr Tom.

'Then I'll risk it. Now for the news.'

The doctor related a couple of rather spicy incidents that had occurred during the voyage from London, and the s.h.i.+pping reporter chuckled over them.

'I reckon these will get that poem in, doc.' The whisky had made him familiar in his speech. Sure enough Dr Tom succeeded in his object, and when his skipper read the poem in the _Morning Light_ next morning, he went about Sydney saying things, and, encountering the happy doctor, vowed he would not take him back in his s.h.i.+p.

'I have no ambition to sail again in your old tub,' said Dr Tom. 'My fortune is made.' So Dr Tom remained in Sydney, found his fortune was not made, and eventually came to Swamp Creek.

As Dr Tom sat meditating over his fortunes, or what remained of them, he thought of many things.

He thought of the first mate on the s.h.i.+p he had left in Sydney, and who had cleared out at the same time as himself. He had never liked that mate, he was a bad lot, and Dr Tom had at one time serious thoughts of dosing him and giving him to the sharks.

He also thought of the days he had spent wandering about Sydney, almost penniless, until a friendly hand had helped him to Swamp Creek and a monotonous existence, and yet it was an existence he did not dislike. He had not an enemy in the place, so far as he knew, and everyone was kind to him.

True, he did a lot of work, and got very few fees, and had even on one occasion to borrow money from Jim Dennis to purchase drugs to supply to sick people.

'When all my accounts are settled,' said Dr Tom to Jim Dennis, 'I mean to buy a station and throw this job up.'

'Don't let the folk around here know that or you'll never be paid. They would not lose you for anything, old man.'

It was very hot after the rain, and Dr Tom had very little else to do but kill time.