CHAPTER VII 



IN TASMANIA 



Looking for Work — What might happen in real Old Age — Idea for 

 Emigrants — In a Lawyer's Ofl&ce — Furnishing on the "Never" — 

 Start in Journahsm 



With the closing of the Sydney Exhibition there was a 

 desire to see Tasmania : I had heard so much about it 

 and the moving spirit was on me. I went down to 

 Hobart with about thirty or forty pounds in my pocket, 

 leaving my wife with her people. Hobart struck me 

 right in the face as a beauty spot; the gorgeous 

 harbour is really the estuary of the River Derwent. 

 The climate is ideal, and the whole atmosphere spelt 

 health. I hadn't a packet of money, but was ex- 

 ploiting the place as a grass-bachelor, with a real 

 nice chap I met on the boat, a Frenchman, who had 

 a business in Sydney. I looked about to see what 

 could be done. By the way, my acquaintance, I 

 read afterwards, got seven years for setting fire to his 

 warehouse in Sydney, but there was a grave doubt as 

 to the justice of the conviction. He was so delighted 

 because I knew his native France so well. I looked 

 around me to see what I could possibly do to make 

 a living. I saw greengrocers, bakers, grocers, iron- 

 mongers — I could be neither ; besides which, where was 

 the capital ? In any case, I never had the obsession 

 to be lowly in trade or anything, although I might 

 come down to sell newspapers I have written for, 

 outside a club I may have belonged to, to those on 

 whom an occasional favour might have been bestowed 

 in former days ; we never know. There would be some- 



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