“No luck!”
“No luck!”
Taken up with their own cares, the two friends had, these last few days, paid little heed to those about them, yet more than once they had noticed a rather stout old gentleman, clean-shaved, white-haired, with a babyish, chubby face, like a cherubim gone to seed, with a pair of big blue eyes that looked wonderingly about. There was generally a cluster of children about him, whom he incited to foot races, long jumps, and other sports, he himself seeming more gay and childish than all the rest. One morning two of these small boys began fighting, and, to the surprise of the young men, the old gentleman, far from interfering, was urging them on, with eager instructions as to how to hold their fists and strike their blows. Huey went forward to interfere. Alec, for his part, thought the sport rather interesting than otherwise. But the old gentleman pulled Huey up by exclaiming—
“Let the young roosters have it out; it makes them game! Watch the little fellow—he is trying the La Blanche I taught him yesterday!”
The bigger boy now retreated, howling, with a bleeding nose, but the old gentleman sent a threepenny-piece after him by another boy, and in like manner rewarded the victor. The children then left in a bee-line for the main entrance gate, probably, as the old gentleman suggested, “To blue their swag.”
So it came about that they all fell talking together, and in course of conversation the old gentleman learned some of the young men’s experiences.
“So you have come to Sydney to make your fortunes, my boys? Nothing like it; I admire pluck. But how are you going about it? Making fortunes wants understanding, like everything else. You want to know the ropes, and if you don’t get on the right track soon, you waste all your time, and perhaps never find it at all.”
“Well, can you tell us the ropes?” interjected Alec.
“That is as it may be. I don’t give all my experience away to the first comer just for the asking. Let us hear what your ideas are of making a fortune first.”
“Well,” said Huey, “I believe in getting into some firm, the bigger the better, and by steady industry and making myself useful, working my way up to the highest position—early to bed, early to rise, a penny saved is a penny got, and all that sort of thing.”