THE PEARL SHELL
5
before their eyes. But Hyams insisted on ordering drinks for all.
In
due course each of these men wanted to order back, partly because none
would risk being thought a sponger and partly because the checks they
had received for the last big shearing were already lodged with the
landlord, and they itched to get a move on—which could not be,
naturally, until the bartender told them that the tap had run dry—for
them. But Hyams made himself a perfect nuisance and insisted that
to-day belonged to him. The others thought to-morrow was a long way off
and possibly might never come. Moreover, who was this little Jew-man to
be wanting to order every time ? You can imagine the state Hyams was in
by the time he offered in turn to kiss the barman and to fight the
whole bloody lot of sheep shearers gathered round the rail, and me too,
his partner to be.
Finally they had to carry him into a back room to prevent bloodshed, but he wouldn't stay put until they locked the door on him.
I
was still listening to him kicking the door down when the siren of our
steamer suddenly proclaimed that she was going to pull out. I stood for
a while in the open door not knowing what to do for the best. Then I
argued that I'd be the cobbler who sticks to his last. I had come to
Australia for pearls and pearls it should be. I would leave the
gold-digging to Hyams. With this decision, I sprinted down the road
towards the jetty and got on board just before the gang-plank was
pulled away. A moment later we backed out.
A
few months later, when I had almost forgotten Hyams, some fellows
coming up the coast mentioned his name and told me that he had hit upon
a really big thing and was growing richer every day. I had, it was
clear, missed my first big chance in Australia. But I was not sorry,
for I could not have lived alongside of Hyams, gold or no gold.
At
Shark's Bay, our next port of call, I said to the first white man I met
on the road: "Have you folks got any blinking eau de Cologne factories
here?"
