Australian Tales - Setis

Joey Goosgog and Jasper Spindle's Trip to Bondi Bay in
a Pony Chaise.
MR. Joseph Goosgog and Mr. Jasper Spindles were a comical looking
pair of Cockneys. They had voyaged from London to Sydney together a
few years ago, and from those four months of constant intercourse, and
the mutual participation of the dangers and disagreeables, inseparable
from a long voyage, a close friendship had sprung up. Though in their
externals they were the very antipodes of each other, their habits and
tastes were strangely identical — their minds seemed to have been cast in
the same mould, and were as much alike as two winter mornings.
Mr. Goosgog, in his city shoes, stood exactly five feet three and threequarter
inches, and was what is termed a podgy man, of fourteen stone or
thereabouts; while Mr. Spindles, though three or four stone lighter than
his friend, was a trifle over six feet one inch in his slippers, and was
lathy, leathery, and angular, with his shoulders peeping into his ears, and
his face as long as a gold-digger's boot.
They were confirmed bachelors, and as shy of young ladies as they
were of sharp dogs. They lodged in the same house, near Sydney, and
boarded together, of course. They were engaged in trade in the city
during the day-time, but they invariably spent their spare hours
together, — in fact, they were almost as uniform in their movements as
the Siamese twins, or a pair of coach wheels. They were plodding men of
business, sharp as razors in their own particular department of soft
goods, but outside that they were soft goods themselves. They knew the
value of time, and seldom took a holiday out of the general course, but
they invariably commemorated their birthdays by a little merry-making
to themselves, and at those times especially they were “jolly good
fellows” by their own unanimous verdict.
One evening in January, that pair of odd fellows, and their landlady,
Mrs. Cobbrer, might have been seen very carefully packing sundry
edibles into a market-basket, together with knives and forks, plates,
tumblers, and tablenapkins for two. The next day was Mr. Spindle's
birthday, and the two friends had decided upon a trip together to Bondi
Bay in a pony chaise, which Mrs. Cobbrer's cousin Phil. had agreed to
lend them for a moderate consideration.
“It will be a baking day,” said Mr. Goosgog, who sat pouring out the
coffee at the breakfast-table on the following morning; “a fiery hot wind,