Australian Tales - Setis

and would be of material benefit to the country as a producer of
something tangible, instead of being a drag on our commercial
machinery, as all such traders are.”
“It's my opinion that the colony is going to ruin,” said Mr. Croke, with
a grimace, ending in a sigh.
“My opinion is quite different to that, sir,” I replied. “This monetary
panic, as you call it, will doubtless cause loss and inconvenience to a
good many persons, but it will not last long, and it will be as beneficial to
our commercial atmosphere as a ‘southerly burster’ after a hot wind;
which, though it makes a great dust, and begrimes a good many of our
smartly-dressed citizens, it nevertheless rids the air of an accumulation of
noxious vapours, and we all breathe more comfortably after it is past. I
could give you more of my views on the causes of the present
commercial excitement, but here is your gate; good day, Mr. Croke: keep
your spirits up, sir. Though times look bad at present, there is far more
reason to hope they will mend, than to anticipate the national ruin which
you have just predicted.”
* * * * *
It is my deliberate opinion that bills are the main-springs of mercantile
disasters in general. I do not mean honest trade bills, but kites, windbags,
blow-flies, or by whatever other nicknames they are known to the
initiated. They are most treacherous things to handle, hazardous as
nitroglycerine, blasting-powder, or any other combustible that is likely to
blow your house up, or rather to blow it down, and damage your
neighbour's houses too. They are as deceitful as will-o'-the-wisps, and
have inveigled many good, simple men into a moral bog, where their
reputation has been bedaubed with indelible dirt. They encourage
idleness, extravagance, reckless trading, lying, cheating, and a host of
other evils too ugly to print. They are the commercial hobgoblins that
breed panic and distrust, knock poor men out of work, and make their
children go hungry and shoeless. They have caused more sleepless nights
than gout, lumbago, painter's colic, and “cats on the tiles” combined; in
short, they are a curse to a community, and I heartily wish I could warn
everybody against being lured into having anything to do with them.
I do not altogether sympathise with my broken-down friend Stumps,
who refused to humour his wife by calling her little son “William,” after
his maternal grand-sire, lest the boy should by-and-bye be called “Bill.”
Neither do I go so far as the other over-scrupulous man, whom I heard
of, who, “on principle,” declines to accept even a handbill from a
draper's boy in the street, still I have a wholesome dread of bills in
general, and if they savour in the least degree of accommodation, I would
almost as soon handle a bagful of detonating powder, or anything else