The Tale of Timber Town

There was the sound of a foot on the narrow stairs, and Jake Ruggles appeared, his hair still damp from his morning ablutions and his face as clean as his muddy complexion would permit.

“’Mornin’, boss.”

“Good morning, my lad.”

“Chops?”

“Chops and repentance,” said the goldsmith.

“Whatyer givin’ us?” asked Jake, indignant. “Who’s takin’ any repentance this morning? – not me, you bet.”

“There’s a game called Euchre, Jake – never play it. There is likewise a game called Kitty, which is worse. You can lose more money in one night at one of these games than you can earn in six months.”

“Speak f’yerself,” said the irreverent Jake. “I own I wasn’t at a temp’rance meetin’ las’ night, but I was in bed long before you come home.”

“I was attending a sick friend,” said Benjamin, dishing up the chops. “I confess I was kept out a little late.”

“Must ’a’ bin the horrors – I hope ’e didn’t die.”

“You are mistaken, my brilliant youth. But I own it was something not unlike it. My friend was drugged while having a friendly game of chance with men he deemed to be respectable. One of them dosed his liquor, while another rooked him with loaded dice, and what with one thing and another he was fleeced of all his cash, and was hocussed into the bargain.”

“An’ what was you doin’ there?”

“I? I was being rooked too, but either the drug was the wrong sort to hocuss me, or I overturned my glass by accident, but I escaped with the loss of a few pounds.”

“Hocuss yer grandmother!” Jake’s ferret-like eyes looked unutterable scorn. “Your bloomin’ hocuss was brandy.”

“The mind of Youth is perverse and foolish,” said the goldsmith, as he poured out the tea. “When the voice of Experience and the voice of Wisdom say, ‘Eschew cards, abjure dice, avoid men with lumps on their necks and revolvers in their pockets,’ sapient Youth says, ‘The old man’s goin’ dotty.’ But we shall see. Youth’s innings will come, and I bet a fiver – no, no, what am I thinking of? – I stake my honour that Youth’s middle stump gets bowled first ball.”

Three years before Tresco had arrived in Timber Town, and had started business on borrowed money. Everything had favoured him but his own improvidence, and on the eve of what he believed to be a financial boom, he found himself in what he described as “a cleft stick.” The quarter’s rent was a fortnight overdue, the interest on his mortgaged stock must be paid in a few days; and in addition to this he was now saddled with a debt of honour which, if paid, would leave him in a bankrupt condition.

Rising from his half-finished meal, he put on his apron, went into the workshop, and sat down at his bench.

The money which he had held for satisfying the immediate calls of his creditors was squandered, and in the course of the morning he might expect a visit from his landlord, demanding payment.

He might put the digger from his mind – a man drugged overnight would not trouble him next day. The thought gave him relief, and he took up his tool and began to engrave a monogram on a piece of silver. The outlines of the letters were marked in pencil, and the point of his graver deftly ploughed little furrows hither and thither, till the beauty of the design displayed itself.

Jake had opened the shop and taken down the shutters. The goldsmith had lighted his pipe, and the workshop had assumed its usual air of industry, when a rapping was heard on the glass case which stood on the counter of the shop.

Benjamin, glad to welcome so early a customer, rose with a beaming face, and bustled out of the workshop.

Bill the Prospector stood before him.

“Good morning!” Tresco’s greeting was effusively delivered. “I hope I see you well.”

“A bit thick in the head, mate,” said the digger, “but not much the worse, ’cept I ain’t got so much as a bean to get a breakfast with.”

“Come in, come in,” exclaimed Benjamin, as he ushered the digger into the back room, where such chops as had escaped the voracious appetite of Jake Ruggles remained upon the table.

“Sit down, my friend; eat, and be well filled,” said the goldsmith. “I’ll brew another pot of tea, and soon our Richard will be himself again.”

The dissipated digger ate half a chop and a morsel of bread and, when the tea was ready, he drank a cupful thirstily.

“Try another,” suggested Tresco, holding the teapot in his hand. “You’re a marvel at making a recovery.”

The digger complied readily.

“That’s the style,” said the goldsmith. “There’s nothing like tea to counteract the effects of a little spree.”

“Spree!” The digger’s face expressed indignation which he did not feel equal to uttering. “The spree remained with the other parties, likewise the dollars.” He emptied his cup, and drew a long breath.

“I reckon we struck a bit of a snag,” said Benjamin, “four of ’em in a lump.”

“They properly cleaned me out, anyway,” said the digger. “I ain’t got so much as sixpence to jingle on a tombstone.”

He fumbled in his pockets, and at length drew out two pieces of crumpled paper. These he smoothed with his rough begrimed hands, and then placed them on the table. They were Tresco’s IOUs.

“I suppose you’ll fix these ’ere, mate,” said he.

Benjamin scratched his head.

“When I’ve squared up my hotel bill an’ a few odds and ends,” explained the digger, “I’ll be makin’ tracks.”

Tresco looked on this man as a veritable gold-mine, in that he had discovered one of the richest diggings in the country. To quarrel with him therefore would be calamitous: to pay him was impossible, without recourse to financial suicide.

“What does it amount to?” he asked, bending over the bits of dirty paper. “H’m, £117 – pretty stiff little bill to meet between 10 p.m. and 10 a.m. Suppose I let you have fifty?”

The digger looked at the goldsmith in astonishment.

“If I didn’t want the money, I’d chuck these bits o’ paper in the fire,” he exclaimed. “S’fer as I’m concerned the odd seventeen pound would do me, but it’s the missis down in Otago. She must ’ave a clear hundred. Women is expensive, I own, but they mustn’t be let starve. So anty up like a white man.”

“I’ll try,” said Tresco.

“If I was you I’d try blanky hard,” said the digger. “Act honest, and I’ll peg you off a claim as good as my own. Act dishonest, an’ you can go to the devil.”

Tresco had taken off his apron, and was putting on his coat. “I’ve no intention of doing that,” he said. “How would it be to get the police to make those spielers disgorge? – you’d be square enough then.”

“Do that, and I’ll never speak to you again. I’ve no mind to be guy’d in the papers as a new chum that was bested by a set of lags.”

“But I tell you they had loaded dice and six-shooters.”

“The bigger fools we to set two minutes in their comp’ny.”

“What if I say they drugged you?”

“I own to bein’ drunk. But if you think to picture me to the public as a greenhorn that can be drugged first and robbed afterwards, you must think me a bigger fool’n I look.”

Tresco held his hat in his hand.