A Wanderer's Notebook

Sun (Auckland), Volume 1, Issue 74, 18 June 1927, Page 17

A Wanderer's Notebook

Genetal Pershing caught and lost Varela's dragoons Does Mr. Vatd Price know Spanish? — Third to Canada Montreal’s NightHfe Whose knee was it? Sporty Dubois

(Written for THE SUN by C. L. C. SMITH.)

EVERY New Zealander abroad must eventually conclude that this country has advantages which none other can boast and which make it pre-eminently the happiest one to live in. The time must come when the call to return is heard. The rich man travels back at leisure. The poor improvident, the victim of the unsatisfactory mental condition known as “wanderlust," gets back as best he may, not much loss when he went, not much gain on return: but he is pleased, more delighted to be back in God’s own country than the rich, by reason of the very squalor his thriftlessnesg has plunged him into abroad.

I caught General Pershing on the stairs of the Plaza Hotel in Buenos

Aires. The element of surprise was complete. He had not granted interviews to pressmen in South America, and was usually so well covered by his staff that a coup was out of the question. Yet here I had him, as it were, on the hip. His aides-de-camp had not yet set foot on the staircase. “General," I began, “1 represent the Buenos Aires “Herald.”—And at that moment, out of the blue, came an extraneous interruption. I got no farther; it was impossible for me to get any farther. The Interruption was absolute and final. I retired. . , . That was the incident which finally settled me on a journey which did not end till I reached New Zealand months after. It was an arduous and difficult trip. On the way to England, the third class on the Royal Mail liner held also a Scotchman and an Englishwoman. The Scot had been a prisoner among rebels in Patagonia, and had interesting stories to tell of desperadoes digging their own graves, and being shot, into them by Colonel Varela’s dragoons. The lady had been bereaved of her husband. whose murderer passed her in the street, a free man, six weeks after the crime. She was taking her children home to get the benefit of an English atmosphere. I had all the credentials for the post I was looking for—on the Renown. taking the Prince of Wales to South America. I knew Spanish, I knew South American politics, and had the most useful! South American friends. What paper could resist such credentials ?

“The Times” managed to. “The Times’” foreign editor was going, and that at the invitation of Buckingham Palace. Assistance? He required none. I tried the “Daily Mail.” I Eound myself in the presence of a :old-eyed member of the staff, whoevinced little interest in what I told him. After a time he said with finality: “Mr Ward Price is doing it for us.” “But can Mr Ward Price talk Spanish?” I asked. The “Daily Mail” man raised eyes in astonishment, and queried with hauteur whether I implied that I was a better man than Mr Ward Price for the job. . . . “Quite unacceptable* Quite unacceptable!” exclaimed the British journalist, and such was the heaviness of the atmosphere that I made my escape while the going was good. I set out on my

| return to New Zealand. The “Melita” j left Southampton towards the end of | April, with the writer in the third class. ' On sailing from England for Canada I intended to proceed to the reawooa lumber area in Mendocino County. California, and to earn sufficient money there for the passage across I the Pacific. But I got no farther than I Montreal. Money! We crossed New I Brunswick, rattled for an hour or so j through “the woods of Maine.” U.S.A.. and while the last of the snow’ was melting from the ground, and the sap was beginning to flow’ in the maple ; trees, we traversed Quebec province to its capital. I had thought of the j fine hotels of upper Peel Street, and the area adjacent to St. Catherine Street, but as I emerged from the great Canadian Pacific headquarters I swung downhill, and found lodgings in the modest Russell Hotel, off St. James Street. At once I set about the quest for employment, with no result. The only drink sold then in saloons in Montreal was a light ale. Across a glass of this in the Russell saloon I met Bob McKenna, a hard case IrishCanadian, vrho had been across the best part of the continent, using all manner of expedients, down to the rods under the wagons. He w’as a quiet man, and, from observation of his conduct in disturbances, one of no mean courage. He had lately been a taxi-driver while in employment, and w’hen last heard of W’as—after seven months of softness aud unemployment— possessed of sufficient grit to hold the post of foreman to a coal shovelling gang, working 10 hours a on the wharf. He was. therefore, though not without many blemishes, a useful man to go hunting work with. “Billy” Boyle was his closest intimate. Boyle w’as as aggressive and full of “gall” as McKenna was coldly determined and undemonstrative. Boyle earned *11.50 in two days, and claimed to be as much at home driving a fire engine as he was bolting-up i for a rivetter. Still moderately in funds, I wuis j met one evening by these two, and asked if I would care to see some of I

the night life in Montreal. As they were capable of knowing a picturesque slide of it, I did not miss the opportunity. A warning w’as brushed aside, and we stepped out of the Russell Hotel into St. James Street. The place of amusement we went to was dingy and sordid. A half-cast Chinese baby played in the room with a crowd of people, prominent amongst them the man who conducted the illicit bar. He and Boyle were soon at loggerheads, and were separated only when the party moved on. Along narrow passages in a large wooden structure we passed till we came to a room loud with music, and a number of people began to dance. Boyle came across, and told me it was my turn. I bought a dozen bottles and that held the crowd for a time. Boyle had forgotten the purveyor of illicit drink. McKenna had found a lady acquaintance, and I was sit-

ting well out of the way watching the proceedings.

I The animation ceased, and I was not quick enough to cauh the reason at once. It was explained to me: ihe sly-grog merchant was jealous of the ’ attentions being paid to one of his | girl friends. She had just arrived —an attractive person of about 20 —and j feared her admirer's arrival at any • moment. He had. threatened to shoot her. Boyle expressed himself in a yell of rage, and made for the door, charging head down. “Stop him. Bob, he’ll only get himself shot.” said the women. And it was not till then that I realised which was the boss —little “Bob” McKenna or big “Billy” Boyle, “Bill” simmered down. I sat rooted to the chair, awaiting the drinksellers’ threatened arrival. Visions of old kinema scenes and the arrival of the police almost got the better of me. but I decided that for once in my life I would see the thing through, whether the police came or not. They did not, neither did the dangerous lover. So the music started again, and all trouble seemed to have passed. A girl came over and sat upon my knee. Then I took particular notice for the first time of a negro who had been close to us since we left the hotel. He had not spoken or stirred since his arrival in the room. His expressionless fa.ce released one quick wink, then betrayed no more interest; but it had beer, a wink of warning. My surmise that the negro knew* the lady to be less ladylike than she appeared was justified by her not retiring with a good grace. This scene, a painful one. as it brought me into argument with the fair sex, had its volubility terminated by McKenna’s quiet and final decision that* “it’s Smithy’s knee, and ’tis for him to say who sits on it.” Now thoroughly shaken, I was looking for some loophole for escape, and saw none. Boyle rolled up to me, saying: “Well! And what about some more beer?” Knowing the man. it was only the fear of w’hat another dozen might do that enabled me to

say quietly, so that, my voice would not break: “No, Billy, I ain’t goin* to buy no more beer.” I expected more trouble than I could handle then, but the storm did not break. I waited a moment, then got up, asked if everybody was paid an 4 satisfied, and walked towards the door. I heard somebody get up and follow me. The passages to the street w’ere dark and narrow, and I reached the moonlight with a gulp of relief. Then L turned to the man behind me. It was the negro. He said: “Smithy, I’m 'Sporty* Dubois. I ain’t no crook. I’m the cook at the hotel where you stops.” That was the commencement of friendship with a man who w*as unfailingly generous and staunch during a time when illness, hunger, penury, and* cold were the day’s chief ingredients.