The tone of Yellow-hair suggested that perhaps the men-boarders favoured Dawn; at all events, it was an attractive name and aroused interested inquiry from me.
"Oh yes, some thought her a beauty! There were great arguments as to whether she or Dora Cowper—another great big fat thing in a hay and corn store over the way—was the belle of Noonoon;" but for her part, Yellow-hair thought her too coarse and vulgar and high-coloured (Miss Jimmeny was sallow and thin), and she was always making herself seen and known everywhere. One would think she owned Noonoon!
"There she is now," exclaimed the girl, pointing out another who was driving a fat pony in a yellow sulky. "Talk of the devil."
"Perhaps it is an angel in this case," I responded, for though she was thickly veiled she suggested youth and a style that pleased the eye.
Whether she and the boats were sufficient to make Clay's an attractive place of residence I did not know, but already was painfully aware of conditions that would make Jimmeny's Hotel an uncomfortable location. I retired to my room to escape some of them—the foul language of the tipplers under the front verandah, and the winds from two streets that also met there in a whirlwind of dust and refuse.
There was nothing for me to do but kill time, and no way of killing it but by simple endurance. I had been ordered to some country resort for the good of my health. But do not fear, reader; this is not to be a compilation of ills and pulses, for no one more than the unfortunate victim of such is so painfully aware of their lack of interest to the community at large. There are, I admit, some invalids who find a certain amount of entertainment in inflicting a list of their aches upon people, blissfully unconscious of how wearisome they can be, but my temperament is of the sensitive order, knowing its length too well to similarly transgress.
How I had struck upon Noonoon I don't know or care, except that it was within easy access of the metropolis, and I have no predilection for being isolated from the crowded haunts of my fellows. I had descended upon Jimmeny's Hotel because in an advertisement sheet it was put down as the leading house of accommodation in Noonoon. Now I had come to hear of Clay's and Dawn, and determined to shift myself there as soon as possible. This did not seem imminent, for presently the "bloated aristocrat" came back to Jimmeny's pub. for the evening meal, as he had been unable to get so much as a shake-down at Clay's. This so aroused my desire to be a boarder at Clay's that I straightway wrote a letter to its châtelaine inquiring what style of accommodation she provided, and could she accommodate me; and strolling up the broken street, while a few larrikins at corners, by way of entertaining themselves and me, made remarks upon my appearance, I dropped it in the post-office, but had to endure a week's inattention at Jimmeny's, and no end of yarns from outside folk I encountered as to how Mrs Jimmeny robbed the "swipes" who took their poison at her bar, before I was honoured by a reply from Mrs Clay.
"The accommodation provided by me for people is clean and wholesome and the best as suits me. If it don't suit them there are other places near that makes more efforts to gather custom than I do. I can't take you in at present as I'm too full for my taste as it is.—Yours respectfully,
"Martha Clay."
This interesting rebuff inspired me to further effort, and sitting on the back verandah, under a giant fig-tree shedding its delicious and wholesome fruit also to the fowls and ants, I wrote:—