Crane knew that I had nearly eighty dollars in the bank, and when I stood up and said I would go and get the money forthwith, he wiped his own eyes, so touched was he by my impulsive kindness. I went off and got the money, and coming back I said to Crane, “Where is he? Is he in his room?”
“Yes,” Crane answered, “but he’s so broken up, and moreover he’s so sensitive about borrowing money from anyone, that you had better leave it on the toilet in his room, when he goes out, and I will explain all to him.” I at once accepted his idea and understood, as I too would have been sensitive in those days at borrowing fifty dollars.
That same night as I walked down the street on the way to the dancing saloon, I met Crane and the bereaved Captain. I felt a bit uncomfortable at first, and so did the Captain as he turned his face sideways, pulled his whiskers and exchanged a quick glance with Crane and then nearly tumbled over. I saw that he was “half seas over,” but I forgave him; I knew that sorrow had driven better men than the Captain to take an extra glass. Well, to cut a sad story short, I went over to the Captain’s house next day to attend the funeral. I had not been invited, but I wanted to do the thing properly. I had got the address out of Crane, and the time, and about ten minutes before the procession was to start for the cemetery I respectfully touched the knocker with a mournful tap, tap. I shall never forget the face of the awful virago who opened the door, and as soon as I mentioned the Captain’s name and told her the purpose of my visit she glared at me and then roared with laughter. I lost my temper at last and said, “I’ve paid fifty dollars for the funeral.” That finished it, and then I heard the truth. The Captain was a card-sharper and I had been done! Even the little ’Frisco kid of about ten years of age looked up into my face with a partly sorrowful and partly contemptuous expression that I was such an ass. I never knew which one really had my fifty dollars, Crane or the Captain. I suppose they shared it. I never saw the Captain again, but one night as I was going to leave my room to go off to work I saw Crane dodge on the staircase of the next floor. He had called to see if there were any letters for him. I said, “Hi, Crane, I want to speak to you.” He came into the room smiling. He had a white-livered face. “Where is my fifty dollars?” I said. And then I had my first and last fight. The look in his eyes broke the last thread of control in my temper, and I let out and gave him a terrible smash in the jaw. He hardly defended himself; he was such a coward, and so ended my friendship with Mr Crane and my trust in “confidence men.” I have met many well-dressed men since that time who agreed profoundly with all my ideas, and ended by telling me of their rich old uncle who was waiting round the corner for ten dollars to get back to his exchequer, but I’ve had my lesson, and if I met another man who wanted money to bury his wife I would not advance it till I saw the coffin, and even then I should respectfully lift the lid before I left the room.
I never saw such a wild place as ’Frisco was in those days. Seafaring men from all parts of the world congregated there much the same as in the Australian sea-board cities. I know not if they were trade union men, but they all looked very independent, chewed and spat much the same as the sailors of my previous experience, excepting they were virtuosos in the art and could send a stream of tobacco juice over their left shoulder without moving the face from its frontward stare. Most of them had billygoat whiskers, and cadaverous faces whereon was written “recklessness”; they mostly lived on beer which was handed to them in vast glasses which they called “deep seas,” “schooners” and “shea-oak.” Those who are on the rocks never bother about food, but live on free luncheons which you can help yourself to if you buy a drink; the food is sometimes “hot sausages, roast beef, cheese and biscuits.”
I found the ’Frisco restaurants Oriental palaces compared with the Australian dining-rooms. The Chinese were there by thousands, smoking their opium and sleeping in awful hovels, such as damp underground cellars, like rats in a hole, and often as you walked by Jackson Street you knew they were under the pavement because the hot, fevered stench came up through the paving stone cracks that let in air to their subterranean dens. As in Sydney they live by gambling and pray for luck in their “Joss-houses,” and you would always know that the “Fan-tan” was on by the yellow nose and alert small eyes of the old spy peeping at the door, keeping “tiggy” in case of a police raid.
At this time I got in with an elderly fellow named Guest. He was a real “knock-out” for yarning and told me many thrilling tales of adventure as we sat or walked out together. He had lived a good deal in Australia. He and I went out through the Golden Gate together, and visited Farallon Islands. He was hard up and I paid the expenses; he was a good chap and thankful too, and would have done the same for me I knew if I had run short. He seemed to know a lot about Australian gaol life and I think he had lodged in one of them against his wish, and so I have not told you his right name. He would tell me many of his experiences and I think that he had escaped from penal servitude at one time or other, for he always, when dwelling on his bush life, let out in some way or other that he nearly stumbled across a township during his wanderings, which was strange considering he should, from my own experience, have been very pleased to do so.
One night we sat together in my little room in Kearney Street. I was strumming on the fiddle and he sat by the window smoking and started one of his yarns. He had a mysterious face, and a quiet earnest voice, and whenever he was serious I would listen carefully to him, and that night he seemed more serious than usual.
“Put your fiddle down, Middleton,” he said, “and I’ll tell you about my hut experience.”
I was so impressed by that tale of his that I think I will tell it you here, as nearly as possible the way he told it to me, as I sat there by the window. Slowly he began: “I was fairly bushed once in North Queensland; it was the time of the great drought. I hadn’t even a swag and it was that sweltering hot that I lay stark naked in a swamp by a gully for half the day. I felt pretty sick too, for I had drunk nearly a quart of the frog-spawned water which was nearly black with ooze and dead reptiles, and I got the fever in my blood that bad that I kept seeing faces swim over me in the steam that rose from the two-inch-deep scum as I lay flat on my back. Phew! it makes me sweat now as I think of it.
“Well, that night as soon as the sun sank like a clot of blood below the skyline, I rose up, full of aches and pains and nearly dead, wiped myself down, put on my pants and shirt, which I had used for a towel, and started staggering off determined to make a last attempt to get to some township or shanty. I think I must have lost my head a bit then, for I got shouting and tearing at my throat as I stumbled along. The moon was up, and for miles over the flat country I could see the gum clumps standing perfectly still, for there was not a breath of wind. Presently I heard a dingo wailing and then silence again as a wind sprang up and over my head the gums’ leaves stirred a bit and the cool air washed my parched body over as though dead fingers were caressing me. Then I could hardly believe my eyes, for across the grey slopes far away I saw a small light. By God, didn’t that light buck me up as I scrambled along and crawling up a small slope on all-fours, for I was then too weak to walk up anything, I found myself standing before a small hut. Outside was a large rain-water tub. I gave the hut door a crash with my foot and then head first went for that tub. ‘Who’s there?’ someone said as I heard the bolt drawn. It was a woman’s voice. ‘It’s only me,’ I answered as she stood at the door gazing astonished as I wiped my mouth. I looked a terrible guy standing there bare-headed and steaming, for I had ducked my head in that water butt; my boots were open at the ends like an alligator’s jaws and I only had my pants on, so you can imagine I did not look the kind of visitor that a woman longed to see at a lonely bush hut at midnight. Anyway she soon saw that I was genuine enough, and in no time I was sitting inside feeling wonderfully refreshed as I drank a large pannikin of hot tea and washed down some food. She was a wistful-looking wench, and I wondered a bit where the boss was, as she sat there white-faced and the open door let the midnight wind in and the moonbeams and shadowed leaves crept over the walls and on to her face and knees from the trees outside. I told her my tale, and then she told hers. Her husband lay in the next room dead, and the young fellow who worked for him had gone off nearly fifty miles to get a coffin for the body. I felt that I was dreaming as I sat there and the night wind blew at intervals and sighed across the forest gums.