‘Well, if this shot turns out badly,’ said Paul, ‘I’ll promise not to back your bills any more. Will that satisfy you? But Levison seems quite determined, “just this once,” as the children say, and I generally take his tip if I see a chance. I think our money is on the right horse.‘
‘I hope so,’ said Ernest, thinking, respectfully, of the lovely condition of Rainbar at the moment, and fearing lest, by any financial legerdemain, it might be taken away from him in time to come.
Before the week was ended, during which the offer of Mildool was open for his acceptance, Mr. Neuchamp had the satisfaction of handing Mr. Sticker a cheque for ten thousand pounds, which he had been obligingly permitted by his banker to draw against certain securities, and also two bills, with interest added at the rate of 8 per cent, for the balance. Upon which somewhat important documents being well scanned and examined, and further submitted to Mr. Pugsley, who was on that occasion introduced, Ernest received an order to obtain delivery of the Mildool station, having twenty-four miles frontage to the river, and going thirty miles back, with four thousand head of cattle, more or less, depasturing thereon, the same to be mustered and counted over in six weeks; any cattle deficient to be paid for by Sticker and Pugsley, at the rate of two-pounds-ten per head, and all cattle in excess to be taken by the purchaser at that price. When this transaction was concluded—on paper, Mr. Neuchamp began to realise that he was having pastoral greatness thrust upon him.
Speculation is a grandly exciting occupation, when all goes well. When the bark is launched, mayhap with tremulous hope, perchance with the reckless pride of youth, there is a wondrously intoxicating triumph in noting the gradual, ever-deep, engine-flowing tide, the steady, favourable gale before which the galley which carried Cæsar and his fortunes ‘walks the waters like a thing of life,’ and finally conveys the illustrious freight to one of the fair havens of the gracious goddess Success. A triumph is decreed to Cæsar. Immediately Cæsar’s critics become bland, his enemies fangless, his friends are pacified—they are always the most difficult personages to assuage; his detractors go and detract from others; his creditors burn incense before him; his feminine acquaintances dress at him, talk at him, sing at him, and look at him—oh! so differently.
Cæsar needs all of his unusually powerful mental attributes if he does not become abominably conceited, and straightway refer the kindness of circumstance to his own inherent talent for calculation and brilliant combination. Let him haste to place yet higher stakes upon the tables, and after the usual fluctuation and flattery of the Fiend, he arises one day ruined, undone, and despised by himself, neglected by others.
The fate of Ernest Neuchamp could never thus be told. Naturally too prudent in pecuniary matters to go much further than he had good warrant for, he was even alarmed at his present comparatively risky position. But he had adopted the advice of his best friend, whose former counsels had been accurately borne out in successful practice. He had taken time to consider. Wiser heads than his own were committed to the same results; and he was according to his custom, prepared to dismiss anxiety, and to await the issue.
Nor was he minded on this account to cut short his stay in Sydney. He determined, in accordance with his own feelings and Mr. Levison’s suggestion, to give the management of the new station to his faithful henchman Jack Windsor, who, now that he was married and settled, would be all the better fitted to undertake a position of responsibility. As for Charley Banks, he should retain him as general manager of Rainbar. He ought not even to live there always himself. If it kept on raining and elevating the fat cattle market ad infinitum, the place could be managed with a ‘long arm.’ No reason to bury himself there for ever. He might even run home to England for a year or so.
Meanwhile it was not unpleasant to be congratulated at the club upon his improved prospects, and his spirited purchase of so extensive and well-known a property as Mildool. He commenced to divide the honour of rapid operation with Mr. Parklands, and found from day to day offers awaiting him of desirable properties situated north, south, east, and west, with any quantity and variety of stock, and of every sort and description of climate and ‘country.’ Mr. Parklands, to the ineffable disgust of Jermyn Croker, had already sold Booroo-booroo and Chatsworth at a profit of six thousand pounds, which Mr. Croker said he regarded as being taken out of his pocket, so to speak. Parklands had, moreover, the coolness to say that, if it had been worth his while to keep two such small stations on hand for a longer time, he could have made ten thousand as easily as the six. Mr. Croker objected to the claret and cookery more pointedly than usual that day, and the committee and the house steward had an evil time of it; that is, as far as contemptuous reference may have affected them.
Mr. Parklands, now truly in his element, indulged his fancy for unlimited speculation and locomotion to the fullest extent. He filled the Melbourne markets with store stock and fat stock, horses and sheep, working bullocks and milch cows, every possible variety of animal, except goats and swine. It was asserted that he did consider the nanny question, and calculated roughly whether a steamer-load of those miniature milchers would not pay decently. He ransacked Tasmania for oats, palings, and jam, and, no doubt, would have largely imported that other interesting product, of which the sister island has always yielded so bounteous a supply, could he have seen his way to a clearing-off sale when he landed the cargo. Finally, he dashed off to Adelaide for a slap at copper, and having taken a contract for ‘ship cattle’ for New Zealand, paused, like another Alexander, awaiting the discovery of fresh colonies in which he might revel in still more colossal operations.