Away stalked the young Northumbrian, like a prince of the blood.
“A chip of the old block,” muttered Mr Berry, as he resumed his desk work. “Poor lad, he’ll have to come down a peg though.”
The cabby sprang towards the young nob.
“Where next, sir?”
“Grindlay’s.”
Archie was not more successful here, nor anywhere else.
But at the end of a week, during which time he had tried as hard as any young man had ever tried before in Sydney or any other city to find some genteel employment, he made a wise resolve; viz, to go into lodgings.
He found that living in a hotel, though very cheerful, made a terrible hole in his purse; so he brought himself “down a peg” by the simple process of “going up” nearer the sky.
Here is the explanation of this paradox. It was Archie’s custom to spend his forenoons looking for something to do, and his evenings walking in the suburbs.
Poor, lonely lad, that never a soul in the city cared for, any more than if he had been a stray cat, he found it wearisome, heart-breaking work wandering about the narrow, twisting streets and getting civilly snubbed. He felt more of a gentleman when dining. Afterwards his tiredness quite left him, and hope swelled his heart once more. So out he would go and away—somewhere, anywhere; it did not matter so long as he could see woods, and water, and houses. Oh, such lovely suburban villas, with cool verandahs, round which flowering creepers twined, and lawns shaded by dark green waving banana trees, beneath which he could ofttimes hear the voices of merry children, or the tinkle of the light guitar. He would give reins to his fancy then, and imagine things—such sweet things!