Nine-day Wonders

Southern Cross, Volume 1, Issue 41, 6 January 1894, Page 9

Nine-day Wonders

* SEEING THE OLD YEAR OUT. A reporter’s life is not all beer and skittles, let me tell you. Occupying prominent positions at all kinds of public gatherings may seem to be a very nice way of putting in tbe time, but it isn’t quite so beautiful to be cooped up for three or four hours at a stretch turning out copy for a greedy comp and greedier subscriber. If you think it is, my friend, just influence some newspaper proprietor to give you a show, and tell us how you like it after a few months’ trial. Take an ordinary New Year’s Eve, for example. You would like to welcome the New Year in the bosom of your family, or with a few convivial associates, wouldn’t you ? That is just where you would be delightfully upset. Ten to one some young lunatic would have a premature display of fireworks, and half blow his little head off, and you would either have to hunt up particulars of that interesting occurrence, or else you would be one of the unfortunates told off by a disagreeable “ sub ” to look after midnight services at tbe different places of worship. If you happened to be in love at that time it would be real jolly to know that some other fellow was enjoying a giddy waltz with his arm around her waist, wouldn’t it ? Last New Year’s Eve happened to fall on a Sunday, and this fact robbed the occason of all its splendour in the pyrotechnical way, besides spoiling the flippant larrikin of his customary celebrations. Notwithstanding this, however, the four of us engaged on the reporting staff of the Sun had our hands full, and when we met at nine o’clock there was the usual growling at things in general, and, on the part of two of us, I regret ho say, some bad language about religious ceremonies in particular. The only married man of the party was the chief, and he was trying his level best (as usual) to persuade the junior—-that’s me —-to do some of his work, so that he might get home to his wife an hour or two earlier —when suddenly the door was thrown open, and in walked the fellow who looks after the shipping, Tom Cross. He, too, was evidently in anything but an amiable frame of mind —Hie English mail boat had been signalled off the Heads, and there was no sitting up with his little party to watch the New Year in. Cross had no sooner mentioned his grievance than Charlie Cruise, who was next in importance to the chief, bounced off the table and let out a most extraordinary jumble of blasphemy and oh-be-joyfulness. He had only been in the colony for a year or so, and I knew some time before that evening that he had sent home the necessary cash for his sweetheart to come out and set up housekeeping. Charlie was a favorite with each of us, he was such a goodtempered, clever beggar, and we would have willingly done his work in addition to our own so that he could have gone off to meet his ladylove, but he had something of a special character to write up, that he only could manage, and hence the blasphemy. W e persuaded him at last that it would be all right —that the boat couldn’t possibly be alongside the wharf much before one o’clock, and he went to work like a steamengine to get through in that time. I had something to write up too, and the other two fellows having cleared out to look after the churches, Charlie and I were left alone until a few minutes to twelve, when Cross turned up again. Now, he didn’t know anything about Charlie’s sweetheart, and after telling us about the mail boat’s arrival in the earlier part of the evening, had cleared out immediately without hearing the explanation of Charlie’s excitement. Well, when he came in the second time, Charlie looked up quickly and asked him if the ship was in already. “ No,” said Cross, “ she won’t he in for some time yet ; there’s not enough water in the channel for her to come up,

but 1 have got all I "want. The purser 1 came up in the ship’s launch, and that has saved me the trouble of waiting any longer.” With that he sat down to the table to prepare his report, and Charlie and I went on with our work. Presently Cross broke the silence again with the remark that he had got a nice “ par ” for some poor devil to read in the morning.

“ What’s that ?” asked Charlie, without looking up from his “copy.” “ One of the lady passengers got married on the voyage out,” answered Cross, going on with his work. “Why should that be a nice ‘par’ for some ‘ poor devil ? ” queried Charley, still writing away as if his life depended on his not stopping. “ Oh,” said that infernal ass Cross, “ she was coming out here to be married to some one who had paid for her passage, but made up a match on board with a wealthy young swell, who was fairly smothered by her pretty face and winning manner.” “ Did “you hear what her name was p” asked Charley—and somehow I thought his voice sourded as if he were in the next room. I tried my best to make that idiot Cross dry up. But, oh, no, he was too busy to notice my signals, and out came the reply. “ The purser told me her name was Crombie, and that she came from a place called Pairminster, in Hereford.”

I looked anxiously towards Charley, whose head was bent low on the table. Every hair on my head felt as if it were rising : my heart gave a thump as if it had exploded, but to my intense relief he went on writing rapidly. I noticed, though, that his left hand was fumbling under his coat tails, and then I remembered that, for some reason or the other, he always carried a revolver. I made a move as if to spring on him, hut it occurred to me that it must be all right, for his pen was still flying over the paper, and I subsided into my seat again. Only for a few seconds, though. The town hall clock chimed the hour of midnight ; the pen was dashed on the table—Charlie rose to his feet, and with such a horrible look on his face as I hope never to see again on a fellow mortal’s, he pulled the trigger, and screamed rather than uttered the word “finished !” Bee.