Best Australian Short Stories by Douglas Stewart, Beatrice Davis

following of boys and loafers had collected by this time. “Blimey, how does he lash out!” was the remark they made. But they didn’t interfere, notwithstanding the sergeant’s frantic appeals, and things were going hard with him when his subordinate, Constable Dooley, appeared on the scene.
    Dooley, better known as the Wombat because of his sleepy disposition, was a man of great strength. He had originally been quartered at Sydney, and had fought many bitter battles with the notorious “pushes” of Bondi, Surry Hills, and The Rocks. After that, duty at Ninemile was child’s play, and he never ran in fewer than two drunks at a time; it was beneath his dignity to be seen capturing a solitary inebriate. If they wouldn’t come any other way, he would take them by the ankles and drag them after him. When the Wombat saw the sergeant in the grasp of an inebriate he bore down on the fray full of fight.
    “I’ll soon make him lave go, sergeant,” he said, and he caught hold of the figure’s right arm, to put on the “police twist”. Unfortunately, at that exact moment the sergeant touched one of the springs in the creature’s breast. With the suddenness and severity of a horse-kick, it lashed out with its right hand, catching the redoubtable Dooley a thud on the jaw, and sending him to grass as if he had been shot.
    For a few minutes he “lay as only dead men lie”. Then he got up bit by bit, wandered off home to the police-barracks, and mentioned casually to his wife that John L. Sullivan had come to town, and had taken the sergeant away to drown him. After which, having given orders that anybody who called was to be told that he had gone fifteen miles out of town to serve a summons on a man for not registering a dog, he locked himself up in a cell for the rest of the day.
    Meanwhile, the Cast-iron Canvasser, still holding the sergeant tightly clutched to its breast, was marching straight towards the river. Something had disorganized its vocal arrangements, and it was now positively shrieking in the sergeant’s ear, and, as it yelled, the little man yelled still louder.
    “Oi don’t want yer accursed book. Lave go uv me, Oi say!” He beat with his fists on its face, and kicked its shins without avail. A short, staggering rush, a wild shriek from the officer, and they both toppled over the steep bank and went souse into the depths of Ninemile Creek.
    That was the end of the matter. The Genius and his mate returned to town hurriedly, and lay low, expecting to be indicted for murder. Constable Dooley drew up a report for the Chief of Police, which contained so many strange statements that the Police Department concluded the sergeant must have got drunk and drowned himself, and that Dooley saw him do it, but was too drunk to pull him out.
    Anyone unacquainted with Ninemile might expect that a report of the occurrence would have reached the Sydney papers. As a matter of fact the storekeeper did think of writing one, but decided that it was too much trouble. There was some idea of asking the Government to fish the two bodies out of the river; but about that time an agitation was started in Ninemile to have the Federal Capital located there, and nothing else mattered.
    The Genius discovered a pub in Sydney that kept the Ninemile brand of whisky, and drank himself to death; the Wombat became a Sub-Inspector of Police; Sloper entered the Christian ministry; Dodge was elected to the Federal Parliament; and a vague tradition about “a bloke who came up here in the horrors, and drowned poor old O’Grady” is the only memory that remains of that wonderful creation, the Cast-iron Canvasser.

Robert Brothers

WHARF LABOURERS
     
    WHETHER wharf labourers as a class are more lurid than other casual workers I don’t know, but it is my opinion that the man who lumps cargo can hold his own against any other. Language is not a gift, but he can’t help himself. If you put a padlock on his lips and gave his mind a bath, he’d