Denis Dent: A Novel

by E. W. Hornung

An unpleasant feature of these canvas streets was that slops and refuse were hurled into the middle of them, while cast-off clothing literally lined the sides; but as a light twinkled at one tent, and a fire blazed up outside the next, the picturesque contrasts afforded by the firelit faces, the inconceivable jumble of grades and races, blinded Denis to all else. Now it was a drayman with a single eye-glass, now a gentle face at the wash-tub and a diamond flashing through the suds. The peoples might have been shot by the shovelful from their respective soils; yellow Yankee, gross German, suspicious Spaniard, sunny Italian, burly Dane and murderous Malay, there they all were, so many separate ingredients newly flung into the pot. A noticeable link was the hook-nosed Jew who spoke every language and hailed from every clime. And either there were more Chinamen even than Europeans, or their blue breeches and their beehive hats brought them oftener to the eye. But the usually drunken blackfellow and his invariably degenerate gin were already becoming scarce in their own land.

Denis and Jim drifted with this cosmopolitan crowd across a bridge, into a region of fewer tents, better lights, more weather-board walls, and not a few of bricks and mortar. A veranda where a free fight was raging turned out to be that of the General Post Office; the flag flying over it celebrated the arrival of an English mail, and it was for their letters that the poor folk fought. One shook himself clear with his letter in his hand, and an indescribable look of happiness on his face, as Denis looked on enviously. In an innkeeper's yard hard by, the horses of a bullock-team scratched the panels of a resplendent brougham; and though this was evidently the fashionable quarter, judging by the numbers of regular shops, the gutters were swollen to such rivers that in places drays acted as ferry-boats across them. In some of the shop windows the things were marked Very Dear to tempt the plutocratic plebeian; but in nearly all there was a legend which went to one head at least—the legend of Gold Bought in Any Quantity.

"There must be plenty going after all," said Denis, "or you wouldn't see that at every turn."

Doherty agreed without enthusiasm; it was what he had always held; but the surface excitement of his years was not proof against a ravenous appetite, whereas Denis could have gone on and on without a bite. Yet they were really in search of modest fare, and were actually reconnoitring a large and flaring shanty, which rather chilled the frugal blood in Denis, when a choice harangue was poured into them from the veranda; and there sat a gorilla of a man, his shirt half-hidden by his beard, dipping a pannikin in a bucket between his knees, and spilling the contents as he waved it to the pair.

"Come in, ye cripples!" roared he. "Come and have a pannikin o' champagne with ole Bullocky, or by the hokey you'll be stretched out stiff!"

And with that the true gorilla fell to pelting them with the empty champagne bottles that surrounded him, until Denis cried a truce and led the way in, laughing, under a storm of drunken banter from the successful digger and his friends.

"A new chum, I see!" said Bullocky, rolling an unsteady eye over Denis when he had handed him the pannikin. "Another blessed 'Jack ashore,' by the cut of ye; deserting orf'cer, I shouldn't wonder! All the more reason listen me: none of your damn quarter-deck airs here, you know. There ain't no blessed orf'cers aboard this little craft. We're all in the cuddy or afore the mast—w'ich you please—so you can just sweat all the notions you ever had. And if you don't empty that there pannikin down your own gullet——"

A huge fist finished the sentence with a terrifying shake, as Denis was in the act of handing the tin mug to the open-mouthed Doherty.

"We haven't had our supper yet," he explained. "It's dangerous stuff on empty stomachs."

"Not had your suppers?" thundered Bullocky; a lurch took him to the tap-room door, where he gave the order in a roar. "Now you drink up," he went on, with ferocious hospitality, as another lurch brought him back. "It cost five pounds a bottle, and if it ain't good enough for scum like you, I'll stretch the two of ye stiff till your grub's ready."