Australian Tales - Setis

consequence than an old barrow with a broken wheel — something's the
matter, I'm sure, and I should like to know what it is.”
“I will tell you all about it, my pet, if you will let me sit down quietly
and hold the frying-pan while you look on and rest a bit. I like to see
pork sausages frizzle in the frying-pan, and I like to smell them, too, so
long as I can keep my imagination within wholesome bounds. I fancy too
they have such a pathetic look, after you have pricked them with a fork,
just like fat lovers fretting.”
“Stuff and nonsense! now be off out of the kitchen, Lemonpip, unless
you want to get your best coat splashed all over with pork fat and
pancake. I hate to see men making mollies of themselves. I'd as soon see
a woman drive an omnibus or a railway engine. If you will fetch me a
little drop of old tom out of the black bottle in the chiffonier, you will do
me more good than by interfering with my cookery. Get me just a
thimblefull, neat, before I begin to fry the pancakes; I feel my
troublesome spasms coming on again.”
“Oh, Betty, Betty! a thimbleful of gin will do you harm instead of
good — it will increase your irritability, and perhaps increase your
spasms too. However, I won't begin an unpleasant argument, although I
feel that I am paying an awfully dear price for peace.” Away trudged Mr.
Lemonpip to the cupboard for the gin, with as much shrinking reluctance
as if he were going to handle a live badger.
For the purpose of my story, it is not necessary to enter upon lengthy
biographical details; still it would be interesting to the reader to know a
little more of the characters just introduced: so I will briefly describe
them, in order that the subsequent part of my story may be better
comprehended.
Mr. Lemonpip was clerk to an old established mercantile firm in
Sydney; in which employ he had been for many years; and had been
several times stepped over, or superseded, by younger men in the same
employ. He was what is commonly called “a slow coach,” or a “steady
going old stager;” still he was faithful as a mirror, and the personification
of cheerfulness and good nature. He might have risen to a higher position
in the world, or even have become wealthy, had he exercised worldly
wisdom, and studied his own immediate interest a little more, and his
neighbour's a little less. But he did not covet high position nor patronage.
He had in his heart “Godliness with contentment,” and that he proved to
be “great gain.” He knew that he had made “free selection” of an estate
of inestimable value — redundant of “green pastures and still waters,” in
the region of light itself; where the shades of night, and the gloom of
sorrow, are alike unknown; where he would by and by enjoy peaceful
possession, free from the encroachments of litigious neighbours,
bushrangers, floods, droughts, diseases, or ought else that could mar his
immortal joy. He knew, too, that the purchase of his inheritance had been