Charley and Smoky

By Bill Gill.

THERE was an unusual flush on old Charley’s face when I met him by appointment.

“Just had a bit of a barney with that goat, Smoky,” he informed me.

“Smoky?” said I. “I didn’t know he was South.”

“Came down a couple of boats ago,” said Charley.

“It seems he hap pened on a shoal of Nautilus shells stranded on the Orokolo beach.

He harvested and crated the lot and brought ’em down with the idea of making a fortune, selling them to museums, novelty shops and such like. He hawked them all over

Sydney, carrying samples in a chaff bag, and finished up selling the lot for five bob to a poultry farmer for shell grit.”

“And you had a barney?” I re minded him.

“Yes,” he continued. “I was cruising down George Street this morning when I saw a crowd gathering, so I elbowed my way in to see what’s doing. There’s a fellow lying in the gutter—it was Smoky, of course.”

“Of course,” I agreed.

“I picked him up and rubbed the dirt off him with his new panama hat. It appears someone had told him about these new-fangled ticket vending machines on the Railways, so he’d ducked in and dropped a zack in a machine, meaning to get a ticket to Central. But instead of a ticket out popped a packet of Aspros.

“Well, you know what Smoky is.

He reckoned he’d been had, and decided to get his money back, so he hauled off and landed a couple of hearty kicks in the guts of the machine. As there was still no sign of his zac, he got the Indian Death lock on it, and had almost suc ceeded in tearing it up by the roots when a joker grabbed him by the slack of the pants and the scruff of the neck, and belted him out into the gutter, where I found him.”

“And you had a barney?” I sug gested.

“I’m coming to that,” said Charley. “Well, Smoky showed me the machine that swindled him so shamelessly and I saw at once his mistake. ‘Why, you old fool,’ I told him, ‘that’s not the railway. That’s the foyer of the Theatrette, next door! ’

“Smoky didn’t have much to say to that. Fact is, he seemed peevish.

“Now don’t take it too much to heart,” I consoled him. “You can’t help being a perpendicular idiot all your days—why, plenty of keen, in telligent men make mistakes like that. As a matter of fact, I got caught at that very place only last week, though I wasn’t such an ass as to mistake it for the Railway entrance.

“So I went on to tell him,” said Charley, “about how I happened to notice a sign outside the Theatrette saying that there was a picture of the Kukukukus showing. Now, I’ve never troubled to go to the moves— a waste of time, I’ve always thought—but this was different. So in I went.

“I looked around and saw a Sheila behind a window, chewing like mad, so I guessed that was a dining room. There was nobody else in sight, barring a row of these slot machines, so I slipped a bob into one of them and got a slab of chocolate.

“I gave this to the lass inside.

She took it, and thanked me, but when I tried to squeeze past her into the show she yelled blue murder. After a lot of argument I had to go back to the little window.

“The Sheila was still chewing like mad, but there was no food in sight. The ticket she gave me cost the best part of a couple of bob.

“ ‘Follow me,’ says the lass who was eating my chocolate! and I followed her through the dark, right to the front of the house. She pointed her torchlight at an empty seat, then off up the aisle again, and me after her.

“There was a bit of a shemozzle at the door with some folks com ing in and others leaving, and I lost sight of the lass, and next

Hawked them in Sydney.

Decided to get his money back.

minute I was out in the street again.

“Well, all the time I was cheer ing up Smoky with this story he’s standing foaming at the mouth. Then, suddenly, he spotted his hat and the things he called me you’d never believe! Me that was only trying to cheer him up!”

“And that was the barney?” I in quired.

“It was,” said Charley. “After I’d rubbed him down with his new panama I gave my shoes a bit of a wipe with it, for luck.”