The Tale of Timber Town

“Is this gold the result of six weeks’ work?” he asked.

“No, barely one week’s,” answered Tresco, his mouth full of ham and new bread.

“Crikey!” Jake inhaled more cigarette smoke. “’Seems to me our potty little trade ain’t in it. I move that we both go in for the loocrative profession of diggin’.”

“Mumf – mumf – muff – muff.” The ham had conquered Tresco’s speech.

“Jes’ so. That’s what I think, boss.”

Benjamin gave a gulp. “I won’t take you,” he said, as plainly as possible.

“Oh, you won’t?”

“I won’t.”

“Then, suppose I go on my own hook, eh?”

“You’ve got to stop and look after this shop. You’re apprenticed to me.”

“Oh, indeed!”

“If a man chooses to spend a little holiday in the bush, is his apprentice to suppose his agreement’s cancelled? Not a bit of it.”

“An’ suppose a man chooses to spend a little holiday in gaol, what then?”

“That’s outside the sphere of practical politics, my son.”

“I don’t know so much about that. I think different. I think we’ll cry quits. I think I’ll go along with you, or likely there’ll be trouble.”

“Trouble?”

“Yes, trouble.”

“What sort of trouble, jackanapes?”

“Why, crimson trouble.”

“Indeed.”

“I’ve got you tied hand and foot, boss. You can take that from me.”

“Is that so? What do you think you can do?”

“I intend to go along with you.”

“But I start to-night. If I can scrape together enough food to last a week or two. But I’ll take you along. You shall come. I’ll show you how I live. Now, then, what d’you say?” There was a twinkle in Tresco’s eye, and the corners of his mouth twitched with merriment.

“Think I don’t know when I’ve got a soft thing on?” Jake took off his apron, and hung it on a nail. “Shan’t want that, for a month or two anyway.” Then he faced the “boss” with, “Equal whacks, you old bandicoot. I’ll find the tucker, and we’ll share the gold.”

Tresco’s smile broke into a hearty laugh. He put his hands to his sides, threw back his head, and fairly chortled.

“I don’t see any joke.” Jake looked at his master from beneath his extravagant eyebrows.

“You’ll … you’ll get the tucker … see?”

“Why, yes – how’s a man to live?”

“An’ you’ll help swag it?”

“’Course.”

“You’ll implicitly obey your lawful lord and master, out on the wallaby?”

“’Spect I’ll ’ave to.”

“You won’t chiack or poke borak at his grey and honoured head when, by reason of his endowment of adipose tissue, his wind gives out?”

“Oh, talk sense. Adipose rabbits’ skins!”

“All these several and collective points being agreed upon, my youthful Adonis, I admit you into partnership.”

“Done,” said the apprentice, with emphasis. “It’s a bargain. Go and sleep, and I’ll fossick round town for tucker – I’m good for a sixty-pound swag, and you for eighty. So-long.”

He turned off the gas, took the key of the side door, which he locked after him, and disappeared, whilst Tresco groped his way to bed.

The surreptitious goldsmith had slept for two hours when the stealthy apprentice let himself quietly into the dark and cheerless house. He bore on his back a heavy bag of flour, and carried on his arm a big basket filled with minor packages gleaned from sleepy shopkeepers, who had been awakened by the lynx-eyed youth knocking at their backdoors.

In the cheerful and enlivening company of an alarum clock, Jake retired to his couch, which consisted of a flax-stuffed mattress resting on a wooden bedstead, and there he quickly buried himself in a weird tangle of dirty blankets, and went to sleep.

At the conclusion of three brief hours, which to the heavy sleeper appeared as so many minutes, the strident alarum woke the apprentice to the stress of life. By the light of a tallow candle he huddled on his clothes, and entered the goldsmith’s chamber.

“Now, then, boss, three o’clock! Up you git!”

Benjamin rubbed his eyes, sat up in bed, and yawned.

“‘’Tis the voice of the sluggard, I heard him complain:
You’ve waked me too soon – I must slumber again.’

What’s the time, Jake?”

“Ain’t I tellin’ you? – three o’clock. If we don’t want to be followed by every digger in the town, we must get out of it before dawn.”

“Wise young Solomon, youth of golden promise. Go and boil the kettle. We’ll have a snack before we go. Then for fresh fields and pastures new.”

The goldsmith bounded out of bed, with a buoyancy which resembled that of an india-rubber ball.

“Ah-ha!