The Missing Link | Page 5

useful member of society. On the other hand,
it may have been a symptom of brain-softening. But it happened to be
neither; it was in fact a means to a wicked end. On the fading end of a
superior suburb, where the streets of fine villas and mansions thinned
off and dwindled, and were lost among the gum trees of the original
wilderness, Nickie found his billet.
The suburb was coming ahead. The motor-car had made it easy and
accessible to the rich. Splendid dwellings were going up all over the
place, the road makers were exceedingly busy, and hammers of the
stone-knappers rattled an incessant fusillade.
Nickie the Kid came to Banklands one pleasant summer day, watched
the busy people with a desultory sort of interest, and moralised within
himself.
"Do these people expect to live a thousand years?" mused Mr. Crips,
"that they build such solid houses? Or do they regard them as
monuments? Look at that palace, and I sleep well on a potato sack
under four boards!"
Nickie was examining a fine, white house, ornate as a wedding cake,
with plentiful cement, and balconies as frivolous as those of a Chinese
pagoda. It stood within capacious grounds, and proclaimed aloud the
fact that its proprietor was a rich man, ostentatious of his riches.

"I expect there's a matter of thirty rooms in that house," mused
Nicholas Crips, "and after all, a man can get just as drunk in a
threepenny bar."
Nickie put in a couple of days skirmishing at Banklands, and fared well,
but as there was no hotel in the suburb Nicholas did not contemplate
making a lengthy stay. Something he saw on the second afternoon
induced him to change his mind, and threw him into a state of profound
reflection lasting for nearly an hour; then he sauntered over to the man
working on the pile of stones before the gates of the cemented mansion,
and seating himself on the broken metal, entered into conversation with
the two-inch mason wielding the hammer.
"Pretty hard work this," ventured Nicholas.
"Blanky hard," assented the stonebreaker.
"Did you ever try the softening influence of beer?" asked Nickie,
drawing a bottle from his pocket.
"Well, I won't make yeh force it on me," said the stonebreaker.
They divided the liquor like brothers dear, and the stonebreaker
developed a sudden affection for Nicholas Crips, who after twenty
minutes casual conversation, introduced his plea.
"Must be splendid exercise for the liver, stoneknapping," he said. "I've
been troubled with liver complaint lately. Living too high. Could you
give a man a job?"
"Well," said the breaker, "I got a sorter contrac' t' break so many yards.
If you'll do it at bob a yard you can get gain' on the other end iv th'
'eap."
The price was far below current rates for cutting metal, but Nickie was
not penurious and grasping. He threw off his tattered coat, and, draped
in fragments of a shirt, in a pair of trousers, half of which fluttered in
the breeze, and boots that looked like a collection of fragments, he set

to work.
Certainly Nicholas Crips did not show any disposition to work himself
to death. After an hour his employer told him he wasn't likely to earn
enough to keep a rag-gatherer in toilet soap, but Nickie explained again
that he was merely exercising his liver, and had no intention of making
an independence as a breaker of road metal.
Nickie's heap was right opposite the great, fanciful iron gates of the
cemented residence. He could see the well-kept garden and the showy
house from where he worked, and he frequently ceased his half hearted
rapping at the tough stone to watch children playing on the lawn. He
was particularly interested in a tall, `severe-looking, fair-haired woman,
who appeared on the balcony for a moment.
Mr. Crips had been at work for about three hours, during which time he
had perspired a good deal and gathered much dust, for Nickie was
habitually easy going, and his task, although pursued with no diligence,
had "taken it out of him" to some extent. He was certainly a deplorable
scarecrow. A fine, polished carriage, with rubber tyres, drawn by a
splendid pair of chestnuts, was driven down the side drove by a livened
menial. It drew up near the centre gates, and Nickie leaned on his
hammer and waited.
The tall, dignified lady, accompanied by a short, important man in
immaculate black, came along the path, and approached the open door
of the vehicle. Nickie advanced carelessly, and intercepted them. He
bowed grotesquely.
"Good day, Billy," he said, familiarly. He lifted his hat pointedly to the
lady. "'Ow's yerself Jinny?" he asked.
The lady and gentleman stared at him in utmost astonishment for a
moment, then consternation