‘One day, as we were walking along the new beach, we observed that here and there some pegs had been driven in, just as if somebody had been staking out a claim; and when we came to inquire, we found that somebody had been staking out a claim.
‘The fellow who did it was a man who lives up there,’ and our acquaintance pointed up the hill to one of the biggest houses in the town. ‘At that time he was a new chum, and because we thought he was a bit soft, we called him Soft Sammy.
‘Sammy, however, took the wind out of our sails this time. Instead of pottering round his ruins like the rest of us had been doing, he had quietly staked the new ground which had been lifted up.
‘At first they told him that land between high and low water-mark was the Queen’s property, and he couldn’t hold possession. Billy, however, showed that the judge had a bit of land on which there was a ship stranded. When it came there no one knew, but that it was a long time ago there was no doubt, as there was then a tree growing out of it.
“The tree didn’t walk there,” was Sammy’s argument; “and if that land belongs to you, then the land I’ve pegged out belongs to me.”
‘The judge decided in Sammy’s favour.
‘As soon as Sammy got possession, he sent round notes to the masters of all the ships which were lying on his ground, politely informing them that unless they moved off his patch within the next twenty-four hours, he should be compelled to take action against them for trespass. He wanted to build on the ground, and they were in the way, he said.
‘As there was no moving the ships, they were put up to auction, and Sammy pocketed half the proceeds. This enabled him to undertake the building he talked about, and now the whole of those buildings facing the water are Sammy’s property.
‘It’s not many people that can make money out of earthquakes, but Sammy managed it, you see. Of course everybody was praying for a second jump-up, so that Sammy’s property would be converted into a back street, and they might get a sea frontage. Sammy had successfully jumped some of the Queen’s property, and why shouldn’t they?
‘When the cold weather came on—for that is the time that earthquakes are frequent—the excitement used to be pretty great. Everyone expected to get a prize some day. A lot of them got the old fellow up at the observatory to calculate the chances of an earthquake coming, and on the days he fixed for the jerk-up to come off, you’d see hundreds of people sitting along the beach, with pegs and mallets ready to block off their new possessions.