to call again in three days.  He did, and was then told by the manager that he “might have something” for him in a month or two.  This annoyed Tom, as he had put on his sole clean collar that morning to produce a good impression.  He asked the official if six months would not suit him better, as he wanted to go away on a lengthy fishing trip with the Attorney-General.  The manager looked at him in a dignified manner, and then bade him an abrupt good-day.

A week passed.  Funds were getting low.  Eight shillings had been paid in advance for his room, and he had spent five in meals.  But he was not despondent; the Susannah Booth, dear, comfortable old wave-puncher, beloved of hard-up supercargoes, was due in a week, and, provided he could inspire his landlady with confidence until then, all would be well.

But the day came when he had to spend his last shilling, and after a fruitless endeavour to get a job on the wharves to drive one of the many steam winches at work discharging cargo from the various ships, he returned home in disgust.

That night, as he sat cogitating in his bedroom over his lucklessness, his eye fell on a vegetable monstrosity from Queensland, presented to him by one of the hands on board the You Yangs.  It was a huge, dried bean-pod, about four feet long, and contained about a dozen large black beans, each about the size of a watch.  He had seen these beans, after the kernels were scooped out, mounted with silver, and used as match-boxes by bushmen and other Australian gentry.  It at once occurred to him that he might sell it.  Surely the thing ought to be worth at least five shillings.

In two minutes he was out in the street, but to his disgust found most of the shops closed, except the very small retail establishments.

Entering a little grocery store, he approached the proprietor, a man with a pale, gargoyle-like face, and unpleasant-looking, raggedy teeth, and showing him the bean, asked him to buy it.

The merchant looked at it with some interest and asked Tom what it was called.

Tom said it was a Locomotor Ataxy. (He didn’t know what a locomotor ataxy was; but it sounded well, and was all the Latin he knew, having heard from his mother that a dissolute brother of hers had been afflicted with that complaint, superinduced by spirituous liquors.)

The grocer-man turned the vegetable over and over again in his hand, and then asked the would-be vendor if he had any more.  Tom said he hadn’t.  The locomotor ataxy, he remarked, was a very rare bean, and very valuable.  But he would sell it cheap—­for five shillings.

“Don’t want it,” said the man rudely, pushing it away contemptuously.  “It’s only a faked-up thing anyway, made of paper-mashy.”

Tom tried to convince him that the thing was perfectly genuine, and actually grew on a vine in North Queensland; but the Notre Dame gargoyle-featured person only heard him with a snort of contempt.  It was obvious he wouldn’t buy it.  So, sneeringly observing to the grocer that no doubt five shillings was a large sum for a man in such a small way of business as he was, Tom went out again into the cold world.