The Foot of Time: A Novel of Australia and the South Seas: (1933)

56 THE FOOT OF TIME
"Because they jolly well have to!" suggested one
young patriot.
"Quite right, Brown. Because even the
Americans are British, too, only they sometimes
forget it. They are just your first cousins, and,"
she added, "first cousins ought to be jolly good
friends, you know."
The boys looked at her.
"Now what would you say if an English lady
invited you all to a jolly party? She is very rich,
too, and will give you a good one, if I know anything
about her. Would you like to go? Mind,
she's English!"
There was a chorus of ayes. The ayes had it—
had it every time.
"Very well, then, it's Bruce Swinton's mother.
She is having the biggest Christmas tree you ever
saw in your lives. It is to be on Christmas Eve!
It will be all covered in imitation snow, like the
trees in her country. There will be lovely presents
on it for all of you—and—and she has invited me,
too. Now, what do you say?"
"Three cheers for Bruce's English mother!"
ordered the dux of the school, a promising young
fellow aged ten.
And after the cheers had died away, and Bruce
was racing home on his pony to chip his mother
about keeping the secret from him, the boys sped
him on his way with another cheer because he was
a true Aussie after all. An Aussie, even if his
mother was from the Old Country, and his father,
a factor, right out of the picture.
CHAPTER VIII.
CUPID'S ARROW.
BRUCE SWINTON saw her first at Palm Beach.
He was twenty at the time; through his "Intermediate,"
with honours in maths. and engineering;
through his Leaving, in which he matriculated, with
special mention again, in the faculty of engineering,
and all its branches. He attended Sydney University,
returning nightly to Clare's home in Vaucluse,
on the eastern side of that southern pearl known as
Sydney Harbour. But why "harbour" is difficult
to know. Perhaps only because (with Hobart) it
was comfortably installed in the front row when
they gave harbours out! The dangerous inclusion
of Hobart may be permitted, since it is a trifle
unusual to be able to run the mightiest leviathans
afloat (if they would honour Aussie) right up,
practically touching the G.P.O. Martin place,
Sydney, has much to recommend it—very much—
but you really can't run battleships into it by any
stretch of the imagination! With this exception,
there is nothing that you cannot do with Sydney
Harbour, unless it be to rid it of sharks.
The previous day had been cyclonic, and the
mighty Pacific rollers, with no harbour to protect
them, came tumbling in, curling high up the firm