Madame Midas. Hume Fergus
lived in a swamp or a desert, would still continue to feel their digestions good and their lungs strong.
Slivers was reputed rich, and Arabian-Night-like stories were told of his boundless wealth, but no one ever knew the exact amount of money he had, and as Slivers never volunteered any information on the subject, no one ever did know. He was a small, wizen-looking little man, who usually wore a suit of clothes a size too large for him, wherein scandal-mongers averred his body rattled like a dried pea in a pod. His hair was white, and fringed the lower portion of his yellow little scalp in a most deceptive fashion. With his hat on Slivers looked sixty; take it off and his bald head immediately added ten years to his existence. His one eye was bright and sharp, of a greyish colour, and the loss of the other was replaced by a greasy black patch, which gave him a sinister appearance. He was cleaned shaved, and had no teeth, but notwithstanding this want, his lips gripped the stem of his long pipe in a wonderfully tenacious and obstinate manner. He carried on the business of a mining agent, and knowing all about the country and the intricacies of the mines, he was one of the cleverest speculators in Ballarat.
The office of Slivers was in Sturt Street, in a dirty, tumble-down cottage wedged between two handsome modern buildings. It was a remnant of old Ballarat which had survived the rage for new houses and highly ornamented terraces. Slivers had been offered money for that ricketty little shanty, but he declined to sell it, averring that as a snail grew to fit his house his house had grown to fit him.
So there it stood – a dingy shingle roof overgrown with moss – a quaint little porch and two numerously paned windows on each side. On top of the porch a sign-board – done by Slivers in the early days, and looking like it – bore the legend ‘Slivers, mining agent.’ The door did not shut – something was wrong with it, so it always stood ajar in a hospitable sort of manner. Entering this, a stranger would find himself in a dark low-roofed passage, with a door at the end leading to the kitchen, another on the right leading to the bedroom, and a third on the left leading to the office, where most of Slivers’ indoor life was spent. He used to stop here nearly all day doing business, with the small table before him covered with scrip, and the mantelpiece behind him covered with specimens of quartz, all labelled with the name of the place whence they came. The inkstand was dirty, the ink thick and the pens rusty; yet, in spite of all these disadvantages, Slivers managed to do well and make money. He used to recommend men to different mines round about, and whenever a manager wanted men, or new hands wanted work, they took themselves off to Slivers, and were sure to be satisfied there. Consequently, his office was nearly always full; either of people on business or casual acquaintances dropping in to have a drink – Slivers was generous in the whisky line – or to pump the old man about some new mine, a thing which no one ever managed to do. When the office was empty, Slivers would go on sorting the scrip on his table, drinking his whisky, or talking to Billy. Now Billy was about as well known in Ballarat as Slivers, and was equally as old and garrulous in his own way. He was one of those large white yellow-crested cockatoos who, in their captivity, pass their time like galley-slaves, chained by one leg. Billy, however, never submitted to the indignity of a chain – he mostly sat on Slivers’ table or on his shoulder, scratching his poll with his black claw, or chattering to Slivers in a communicative manner. People said Billy was Slivers’ evil spirit, and as a matter of fact, there was something uncanny in the wisdom of the bird. He could converse fluently on all occasions, and needed no drawing out, inasmuch as he was always ready to exhibit his powers of conversation. He was not a pious bird – belonging to Slivers, he could hardly be expected to be – and his language was redolent of Billingsgate. So Billy being so clever was quite a character in his way, and, seated on Slivers’ shoulder with his black bead of an eye watching his master writing with the rusty pen, they looked a most unholy pair.
The warm sunlight poured through the dingy windows of the office, and filled the dark room with a sort of sombre glory. The atmosphere of Slivers’ office was thick and dusty, and the sun made long beams of light through the heavy air. Slivers had pushed all the scrip and loose papers away, and was writing a letter in the little clearing caused by their removal. On the old-fashioned inkstand was a paper full of grains of gold, and on this the sunlight rested, making it glitter in the obscurity of the room. Billy, seated on Slivers’ shoulder, was astonished at this, and, inspired by a spirit of adventure, he climbed down and waddled clumsily across the table to the inkstand, where he seized a small nugget in his beak and made off with it. Slivers looked up from his writing suddenly: so, being detected, Billy stopped and looked at him, still carrying the nugget in his beak.
‘Drop it,’ said Slivers severely, in his rasping little voice. Billy pretended not to understand, and after eyeing Slivers for a moment or two resumed his journey. Slivers stretched out his hand for the ruler, whereupon Billy, becoming alive to his danger, dropped the nugget, and flew down off the table with a discordant shriek.
‘Devil! devil! devil!’ screamed this amiable bird, flopping up and down on the floor. ‘You’re a liar! You’re a liar! Pickles.’
Having delivered himself of this bad language, Billy waddled to his master’s chair, and climbing up by the aid of his claws and beak, soon established himself in his old position. Slivers, however, was not attending to him, as he was leaning back in his chair drumming in an absent sort of way with his lean fingers on the table. His cork arm hung down limply, and his one eye was fixed on a letter lying in front of him. This was a communication from the manager of the Pactolus Mine requesting Slivers to get him more hands, and Slivers’ thoughts had wandered away from the letter to the person who wrote it, and from thence to Madame Midas.
‘She’s a clever woman,’ observed Slivers, at length, in a musing sort of tone, ‘and she’s got a good thing on in that claim if she only strikes the Lead.’
‘Devil,’ said Billy once more, in a harsh voice.
‘Exactly,’ answered Slivers, ‘the Devil’s Lead. Oh, Lord! what a fool I was not to have collared that ground before she did; but that infernal McIntosh never would tell me where the place was. Never mind, I’ll be even with him yet; curse him.’
His expression of face was not pleasant as he said this, and he grasped the letter in front of him in a violent way, as if he were wishing his long fingers were round the writer’s throat. Tapping with his wooden leg on the floor, he was about to recommence his musings, when he heard a step in the passage, and the door of his office being pushed violently open, a man entered without further ceremony, and flung himself down on a chair near the window.
‘Fire!’ said Billy, on seeing this abrupt entry; ‘how’s your mother! – Ballarat and Bendigo – Bendigo and Ballarat.’
The newcomer was a man short and powerfully built, dressed in a shabby-genteel sort of way, with a massive head covered with black hair, heavy side whiskers and moustache, and a clean shaved chin, which had that blue appearance common to very dark men who shave. His mouth – that is, as much as could be seen of it under the drooping moustache – was weak and undecided, and his dark eyes so shifty and restless that they seemed unable to meet a steady gaze, but always looked at some inanimate object that would not stare them out of countenance.
‘Well, Mr Randolph Villiers,’ croaked Slivers, after contemplating his visitor for a few moments, ‘how’s business?’
‘Infernally bad,’ retorted Mr Villiers, pulling out a cigar and lighting it. ‘I’ve lost twenty pounds on those Moscow shares.’
‘More fool you,’ replied Slivers, courteously, swinging round in his chair so as to face Villiers. ‘I could have told you the mine was no good; but you will go on your own bad judgment.’
‘It’s like getting blood out of a stone to get tips from you,’ growled Villiers, with a sulky air. ‘Come now, old boy,’ in a cajoling manner, ‘tell us something good – I’m nearly stone broke, and I must live.’
‘I’m hanged if I see the necessity,’ malignantly returned Slivers, unconsciously quoting Voltaire; ‘but if you do want to get into a good thing – ’
‘Yes! yes!’ said the other, eagerly bending forward.
‘Get an interest in the Pactolus,’ and the agreeable old gentleman leaned back and laughed loudly in a raucous manner at his visitor’s discomfited