TOURING
COMPANY
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I'll tell you "Listell. Gus. what the trouble is. I'm looking for, a particular girl. I met her here earlier in the tour when we were playing the State match. All these Aussie girls are the cutest things in the whole blinking uni- yerse-"
Mr. Stratton Bung up his artns like some impassioned orator in merely the nude. Mr. Pogson blew out his moustache scornful-" "ly.
"And this girl," continued Dandy rapturously, "is, believe me. Gus, the absolute prize peach of the whole slam basket."
Gussy made an angry grab at his vest.
"You are here to play cricket
"She isn't here, that's the point. and she swore she would be."" -
"If you persist in this attitude I shall feel called upon to report
CHINA MAIL CHRISTMAS NUMBER.
SUNDOWNER
T.
trees
Twas on the road to Netherby I met him one fine morning, Plodding past the lonely gum And a-lugging of his swag: He was very rough and dirty, Just an old Sundowning Gertie; Stopped and smiled, and looked me
over,
Saying "*ave yer got a'fag?'""
I.
Sure his face was lined and dusty. But his eyes were blue as chino, And his smile was like the sunshine O'er the desert early moPIE. Sat him down beside a boulder. With a "Must be growin" older, Still, no wry: goin' nowhere; "Ere we are until we're gone,
III.
“Fifty years I've jumped the bincy; Maybe just a little barmy. But I tried me and at most things. An' just couldn't settle down; There's something sorta geta yer, It's an "abit wot grows on yer: I could never stand fer livin' In a shut-in bleedin' town.
IV.
the matter to the proper authori-I remembers the old cottage ties to be dealt with through the correct channels."
Mr. Pogson completed a hot toilet, and left the dressing-room alone, flushed and extremely pug-" nacious. As he opened the door a small boy who had wormed his way to the head of an expectant throng, flung himself upon Gussy, proffering a dishevelled pocket- book containing some well-thumb- ed inscriptions.
"Ere-Gussy!" he cried. "Who?"
"Well-Mr. Pogson."
ווי
So I should hope indeed. Standī aside, please."
"Well, beet
ker."
"What!"
us out yer moni-
"Give us yer autograph." "Most certainly not." Gussy managed to push his ar- bitrary little way through" the grinning crowd and to escape. though his ears burned with the shameful impression that Eng- land's captain was being sub- jected to ribald comment. In- deed, the small boy, who seemed inspired by a foreboding that Gussy would fail to score on Mon- day morning, followed for some distance. running in his shadow. and prophesying loudly.
Dandy, when he emerged, was a great deal more considerate to the fans. He scrutinized every girl in turn with desperate hope. But no; she wasn't there.' And if she wasn't there she couldn't be in Sydney at all.
Weary as he was with the heat and tail of the day, he started to walk back to the hotel. Not on purpose-simply he was lost in contemplation. Here he was, on the eve of what should have been the best Christmas he'd ever struck. Fifty not out-all the cables buzzing with his name. He could visualize the posters at home-Stratton England's Hope, and Can "Dandy" Do It! and the like. Of course, he could do it. He could make two hundred on Monday, and, but for this worry- ing abstraction about this girl, he not only could but would.
Queer how keen he was, be cause he'd only met her for ten
Wol. I lived in as a wipper, Up in New South close ter Sydney,
Looking out across the sea.
But the sighin' of the palm trees, And the moonlight on the water Got me bloomin' feet to itchin An' that was the end o' me.
V.
11
"So I ships me out to Auckland, Nert to Suva, in the Fijies; Ou to dreamy old Haiwaia, Then toward the Golden Gate. Boiled my billy out of 'Erisco, Rode the roda through Californet, Pinched some cattle down in Texas; Couldn't settle-must be fate.
minutes. But, as he told him. self, it was one of those cases where Cupid delivers an absolute snorter, coming very fast off the -pitch and leaving you absolutely
defenceless. Or, if you cared to " put it the other way, Dandy had had a brief innings but had never in his life scored so quickly.
Some mutual friend (he'd for- gutten who, or that might have helped) had Introduced them. Dandy had told her that, stunned da he had been from the first by the glory of Australian girls, he had known all along that there must be one particular one some- where who was it, and it alone. And, she was it.. The girl, with commendable practicability, had told Dandy that she lived with her father on a station a hundred miles up-country; but that she would be coming to Sydney for the Test and they could spend Christmas Day together and per- haps really see something of each other. Then some fool had but- ted in and Dandy had never even so much as hooked on to her name and address. This had been in November, in the match against New South Wales. Fortunately, perhaps, for Gussy's peace of mind, the meeting had taken " place during, the final day's play. Curse'l Because the girl had
been a genuine about it as he was. Then, if she couldn't come, why didn't she write or some- thing? She knew who he was, anyway. Blast!
And that poor little pedantic
BY TWILIGHT JONAH.
VI. "Hit up North across the border.. Eastward to the 'Peg I wandered; Ruddy cold up there in winter, But I still kept goin' North; Mushed with Benny up in Timmins; Made a lot of cash, and blowed it; Had a fortune if I'd knowed it, Didn't stay though, just blew off.
VII. "Worked me South toward the Gr eat Lakes,
Down to where the old St. Lawrence Cracks her ice up in the Springtime. An' goes runnin' on her way: Jumped a brig from off Rimouski "To the land of fog and drizzle;
England's bonzer, London's 'andso
But I didn't care to stay.
VIN
me,
"Bishop's Rock I left behind me; Teneriffe ad before, Then the next thing I was doin' Wos a-trekkin' o'er the veldt; Cape Town, Jo'burg. Durban knew
me;
l'ave 'ad some bosker chances,
·But just couldn't stay located, Must a been the way I felt.
IX.
D:
"Somethin' in me blood I'm thinkin' Keeps me always bloomin' 'oppin', And I'm hittin' now fer Melbourne Though I ain't just quite sure why, Guess I'll always be a roamer, A billy-boilin' "obo like; A knockin' 'ere and there again Until I 'as ter die."
X.
So I left him, one fine morning, 'Twas on the road to Netherby; Sitting lazy by a boulder
With his back against his swag: He toas very rough and dirty, Just an old Sundowning Gertie. Smiled at me, and looked me over: Bummed the match, and lit his fag,
puffing, petulant, protesting Gus sy! Well, well, poor little devil, he was married and naturally didn't know what love really meant. Dandy had met Mrs. Gus -an awful woman, thin as stick and with an enormous row of separate front teeth-like a rake in fact. Thank heaven she wasn't on this trip. One Pogson was enough.
A
Dandy realized he'd be late for dinner, and knew that if you ap» pear after seven o'clock in the Australian dining-room of an
hotel you get no dinner at all; but he didn't care. Dinner only meant an exceedingly insipid Ash, called a schnapper and a mass of chicken Maryland heaped on your plate in a manner cal- culated to upset the appetite of a schoolboy. Moreover, the waiter was liable to lean his elbow on. your shoulder and participate in your conversation, and Dandy didn't feel in the mood for that sort of thing to-night,
He didn't feel in the mood for anything. Hell!
Why hadn't
she written?
ך!
She'd written. She had writ ten. He snatched the letter from the man in the hotel office and tore it open, knowing instinctive- ly it was from her. He gabbled almost incoherent thanke-"Oh, good, good! Just what I wanted most, in the world.”
The hotel clerk, like the walt- ers, was a matey son.
he inquired laconical
14.
11
11
"Of Paradise,” replied Dandy, The letter was quite short and formal. She and Dad hadn't been able to get to Sydney as she had injudiciously crashed the car and they couldn't get another; besides, Dad was cattle-branding on Monday and had to be home. But what about Mr. Stratton spending Christmas Day at the station? It was only n three hours' run and the road was quite all right. If he started fairly early he could get there for lunch. She signed herself Sylvia Hale. Her address was Jackson Ridge, and she gave her telephone number. So within a few minutes a dinnerless but was talking to ecstatic Dandy her again.
The sound of her voice helped him to remember what she look». ed like a bit more clearly. She was very trim, he remembered:
a. perfect, nimble little figure. She had the usual lovely comple- xion, but was unusually pretty. Not that they weren't most of them pretty.
But she had just
a bit extra of that perky, piquant sort of prettiness so many
of them had. By gad, she was a peach; and as for her voice-- well, of course, it had, perhaps, to a rather marked degree, that queer little nasal squeakiness of the familiar Australian accent; but, personally, Dandy admired that, and anyone who didn't could simply go to hell, and that was that.
Dandy again made the most of his innings and piled up the runs of affection until the telephone wires positively sizzled with ar- dour. You bet he'd come. He'd be at Jackson's Ridge by midday. He had a car. Some Australian friend, with characteristic hos- pitality, had lent him one. Who'd be there? Just she and Dad?
"Well," she said, "I'm afraid there may have to be Wally Gunn. He's from another station near by. He's a bit of a rough-neck, but hela on his own and it's Christmas. Still, we can give him the air. Bye-bye. See you to-morrow-lovely." She laugh-
ed a laugh which sounded to Dandy like the tinkle of a silver bell. She then hung up the re- ceiver and turned with a jump to find the swarthy figure of Mr. Wally Gunn obliterating the twi- light in the doorway,
"How long have you heen there?" she cried.
"Long enough," said Mr. Gunn. "Who's the cove?"
"What? Why, Dandy Stratton. You know-the England cricke- ter."
"Oh, one o' those cows," said "Darned Mr. Guon profanely? good of him to come up here and mix himself up with rough- necks."
Sylvie Hale was genuinely dis- tressed at having hurt his feel- ings. She did her best to apolo- gize quite simply and honestly. But we cannot, I suppose, alto- gether blame Wally Gunn for cut- ting up pretty rough. Again, Sylvie ing a spirited girl, she did not stand for being cut up rough with, especially when she knew she was really in the wrong. The result was that Dad, arriving puzzled and stmöst 270-
the scene, “and logatic upor
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