I dare say there was considerable pettiness about the way in which I saved my earnings instead of squandering them with glad youthfulness, as did most of my colleagues. There was something of the huckster's instinct, no doubt, in many of the trivial journalistic ideas I evolved, took to my chief, and pleased my employers by carrying out successfully. I suppose these were the petty ways by which I managed somehow to clamber out of the position in which my father's death had left me. They are set down here because they certainly were a part of my life. I am not ashamed of them, but I do wonder at them rather as a part of my life; not at all as something beneath me, but as something suggesting the possession of a kind of commercial gift for 'getting on,' of which my after life gave little or no indication. In all my youth there was undoubtedly a marked absence of the care-free jollity, the irresponsible joyousness, which is supposed to belong naturally to youth. This was not due, I think, to the mere fact of my being left alone in the world as a child. We have all met urchins joyous in the most abject destitution. I attribute it to two causes: inherited temperamental tendencies, and the particular circumstances in which I happened to be left alone in the world. Had I been born in a slum, and subsequently left an orphan there; or had my father's death occurred half a dozen years earlier than it did; in either case my circumstances would, I apprehend, have influenced me far less.
As things were with me when I found myself in the ranks of the friendless and penniless, I had formed certain definite tastes and associations, the influence of which was such as to make me earnestly anxious to get away from that strata of the community which my companions at St. Peter's Orphanage, for example, accepted unquestioningly as their own. Now when a youngster in his early teens is possessed by an earnest desire of that sort, I suppose it is not likely to stimulate irresponsible gaiety and carelessness in him.
But, withal, I enjoyed those Sydney years; yes, I savoured the life of that period with unfailing zest. But, incidents of the type which dear old Mrs. Gabbitas called 'Awful warnings,' were for me more real, more impressive, than they are to youths who live in comfortably luxurious homes, and know the care of mother and sisters. The normal youth is naturally not often moved to the vein of--'There, but for the grace of God, goes ---- etc.' But I was, inevitably.
For instance, there was the American journalist who so heartily despised my bourgeois prudence and progress. As I walked through the Domain one evening, not many months after I had heard myself compared with a 'sure thing grafter,' I saw a piece of human wreckage curled up under a tree in the moonlight. It was not a very infrequent sight of course, even in prosperous Sydney, This particular wreck, as he lay sleeping there, exposed the fact that he wore neither shirt nor socks. He was dreadfully filthy, and his stertorous breathing gave a clue to the cause of his degradation. As I drew level with him, the moon shone full on his stubble-grown face. He was the American reporter.
Here was a chance to return good for evil. I might have done several quite picturesque things, and did think of leaving a coin beside the poor wretch. Then I pictured its inevitable destination, and impatiently asked myself why sentimentality should carry money of mine into public-house tills. So I passed on. Finally, after walking a hundred yards, I retraced my steps and slid half a crown under the man's grimy hand, where it lay limply on the grass.
XXI
The work that gave me most satisfaction at this time was writing of a kind which I could not induce my chief to favour for his own purposes. He said it was not sufficiently 'legitimate journalism' for the Chronicle. (The 'eighties were still young.) And only at long intervals was I able to persuade him to accept one or two examples, though I insisted it was the best work I had ever attempted for the paper; as, indeed, it very likely was.
'But this is practically a story,' or 'This is really fiction,' or 'This is a sketch of a personal character, not a newspaper feature,' he would say. And then, one day, in handing me back one of my rejected offspring, he said: 'Look here, Freydon, see if you can condense this a shade, and then send it to the editor of the Observer. I've written him saying I should tell you this.'
I followed this kindly advice, and, a month later, enjoyed the profound satisfaction of reading my little contribution in the famous Australian weekly journal. The fact would have no interest for any one else, of course, but I have always remembered this little sketch of a type of Australian bushman, because it was the first signed contribution from my pen to appear in any journal of standing; the first of a series which appeared perhaps once in a month during the rest of my time in Sydney.
People I met in Mr. Rawlence's studio occasionally mentioned these sketches, and I took great pleasure in them. Incidentally, they added to my hoard at the bank. Mr. Smith, my room-mate at North Shore, had hitherto regarded my newspaper work strictly from a business standpoint; judging it solely by the salary it brought. Suddenly now I found I had touched an unsuspected vein of his character. He was surprisingly pleased about these signed Observer sketches. This was authorship, he said; and he spoke to every one, with most kindly pride, of his young friend's work.