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Tribulations Of A New Chum.

Raletgh approached the new chum, and entered into conversation with that hapless young man. There was something comical about the lean, forlorn, and ragged appearance of the youth; but there was also a look of helplessness and suffering on his pale and meagre features that excited compassion.

"You are learning to rough it with a vengeance," remarked the philosopher in a friendly way.

"It is past endurance," replied the other with a tragic air. "Oh! the horrors of this existence are indescribable. I shudder to relate them. I have never tasted a good meal, or obtained a night's rest, or known an hour of peace, since I have been here. We camped here on a dark stormy night, and I have lain on the damp ground ever since, until the cold seems to have struck right through me. Then, think of four of us having to pig down in an eight-by-ten tent, nearly stifled "in a sickening atmosphere! I have, had to jump up in the night and rush outside in the rain and darkness gasping for breath. And I have stood out in the open, shivering and wet through, for hours sooner than seck for shelter in that suffocating hole. Then, the food we have had to swallow—their grub, as they call it—would turn a dog's stomach. And, to pile on the agony, they have forced me to cook it. I have been appointed 'doctor' to the party, and have not only to serve up this horrid mess, but to stand all the abuse and revilings of the exasperated crew. Oh, and the language of these men! Well, there! I thought I could stand a good deal in that line, and I used to rail at the enforced correctness of our talk at home, and kick at the everlasting 'good-behaviour' business; but I never could have conceived such revolting profanity and such concentrated beastliness."

"Never mind mental contamination—you can protect yourself against that by not listening; but with material comfort it is different. Where do you draw the water?"

"From that hole yonder," replied he, pointing to a slimy pool that was almost hidden in rushes and dead wood.

"That's more serious than profanity," observed the philosopher gravely. "You must be careful what you page 146drink, or some of you will be leaving your hones here. You should have camped near the river in the open, and with a little care and practical knowledge there is no reason why you should not be able to make a camp, if not comfortable, at least bearable."

"Not with this set," muttered the new chum, in a hopeless way.

"What brought you into such a set?"

"Well, I had a letter of introduction to Mr. Grey; and, not knowing what to do on my arrival in the colony, I came up country to present it. He received me with a certain gruff hospitality for such an old bear, and I stayed some weeks at the station. Then he asked me what I proposed doing, and I told him I was on for anything where money was to be made—that I was quite willing to work if I could only get a chance, and that I rather liked the idea of roughing it. So, when these fellows started shingle-splitting, he asked them as a favour to give me a show, and I was fool enough to come with them. I shall know better next time, if ever I live to see it."

"And, if I may ask, what brought you here at all, for you don't seem cut out for this sort of thing?"

The new chum dropped down on a log, and covering his face with his poor blistered hands, he commenced a rambling and doleful account of his emigration and colonial experience. He said that he was the eldest son of a general on the retired list—a stern and stiff old buffer, according to his son's idea, and a strict disciplinarian. The young man did not appear, even from his own account, to have suffered much from paternal tyranny; but he objected to some of the regulations of the household as an undue infringement of personal liberty. The "governor" was very firm on some points: he would not permit smoking in the bedrooms; dogs were not allowed in the drawing-room; and he insisted on his son's dressing for dinner.

Outside of these arbitrary rules the new chum had to admit that his father was kind, and even indulgent. But the young blood rebelled at any sort of restraint; he had imbibed democratic notions about liberty and equality, and a supreme contempt for the artificial restrictions and stupid prejudices of a bloated" society. His proud spirit resented dictation; and after many outbursts, culminating in an page 147"awful row," he finally broke loose from the hateful bonds, and took a passage to the antipodes.

Under cross-examination the new chum rather weakened his position and made some damaging admissions. So far as the smoking in bedrooms was concerned, the rule turned out to be a dead letter, for the young man did not smoke: it made him sick. The order against bringing a dog into the drawing-room could not have seriously affected him-either, inasmuch as he never kept a dog. But the great source of trouble—the one bar to the entente cordiale, the rock upon which they had split and parted perhaps for ever —was the intolerable infliction of having to dress for dinner. As an amateur Bohemian, of irregular proclivities, the young spark refused to how to a silly and uncongenial custom: as a retired general officer of Her Majesty's service, and an upholder of authority and deportment, the stern parent was inexorable. And so the trouble was brought about which ended so much to the disadvantage of the new chum. He had suffered greatly, and had been brought so low, as he ruefully remarked, that he could scarcely get lower, unless it was to go under the ground.

"It's a bad case," observed Raleigh, "but I don't know that we ought to commiserate you. According to the ancient philosopher whom no doubt yon have studied, pity should only be aroused by the sight of undeserved calamity: while it must be conceded that you have thoroughly deserved your fate. However, the main question for you is, to find some relief from present miseries. In your helpless condition I hardly know what to advise you to do, unless it is to roll up your blankets and make tracks for the port, and thence, by the first chance that offers, find your way home again, even if you have to work your passage before the mast."

"Never!" piped the other, in broken accents; "besides, I have no money, no clothes, no friends—nothing left."

"What has become of it all? You surely did not arrive here naked and penniless; and you have not been a year in the colony. As a last resource you have, I suppose, your famous dress suit—

To you the direful spring Of woes unnumbered?"

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"No; I pitched that overboard in a fit of bravado on leaving the Old Country. I spent all my pocket-money on the voyage out at loo and in drinks. We were a jolly lot of fellows on board, and we had a fine time of it while it lasted. I left my silver-mounted dressing-case at my hotel in town, as security for my bill. I parted with my gun— a regular beauty, worth thirty guineas—to pay for a week's spree at the half-way house, where I met a couple of my shipmates who were also on the tramp. It was an awful sacrifice: but what could I do? I paid away a brace of revolvers at the next two public-houses on the road; and I sold ail my fine linen and other things at a mock auction held at Grey's station. My best white shirts only fetched a shilling apiece, which was, of course, much under their value—although I have no idea what they cost. But what's a fellow to do? I begin to think I must be a fool."

"If you have seriously arrived at that conclusion your colonial experience may not have been entirely thrown away. But, tell me, have you nothing left?"

"Nothing whatever but two letters of introduction;" and the disconsolate young man pulled out two crumpled, greasy, and blackened objects from his breast-pocket. "I had a packet of them when I first came out," he continued, "and I managed to live upon them, for six months or more. Now I have only these two left. One is to Mr. Smith, who, I hear, is since dead; so, of course, that is of no use-to me; and the other letter is to a Captain somebody—the name is illegible—who, I believe, is on active service in the North Island."

"Present that letter by all means," exclaimed Raleigh, brightening up. "The captain might possess enough interest to have you enlisted in the ranks. You are the son of a soldier: become a soldier yourself, and, if yon can do nothing else for this your adopted country, at least you can be shot."

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He would willingly have borrowed a pound or two from the philosopher to meet his most pressing requirements, and have listened to his words of sympathy; but such advice was not to his liking. That a man of his breeding and high temper, who had thrown up family and fortune, and broken from his luxurious home, sooner than stoop to the restraint of having to pub on a dress-coat for dinner— that such a man should be advised to enlist in the ranks, to submit to be encased in a common uniform, to turn and wheel about like a puppet, to pipeclay his own gaiters and black his officer's boots, and have to stand up to he potted by some grinning savage, that was too much! Even in his forlorn and degraded state, tanned, starved, flea-bitten, and broken-hearted, he had still enough spirit left to resent such a suggestion as an insult.

—D. Chamier

("Philosopher Dick," 1891).