‘Big place, this station with the funny name, you’re talkin’ about?’ asked the newcomer, who had introduced himself as ‘Mr Potts, from London.’
‘Over a hundred men of one sort or another all the year round,’ was the reply. ‘Capital shop for us, once too. But it’s sudden death to venture there now. I did real good biz at Barracaboo for the Shuffle Litho. Company. It wouldn’t pay, though, to chance back again.’
‘Ah, that was the “Around the World” thing, wasn’t it? Didn’t come up to guarantee, eh?’
‘Well, hardly,’ replied the other. ‘However, that wasn’t my fault, you know. All I had to do was to get the orders, which I did to the tune of a couple of hundred or thereabout.’
‘That’s the worst of those things,’ said Mr Potts. ‘Instalments always make a mess of it. Then the agent loses his character, if nothing else. I was out delivering in the Western District for Shuffle Litho., and was glad to get away by the skin of my teeth. But it’s not only the personal danger I object to,’ continued Mr Potts, after a pause. ‘It is the, ahem, the moral degradation involved in such a pursuit—you know what I mean, sir?’
‘Just so, just so,’ answered the other vaguely, with a hard stare at the round, red face looming through cigar smoke.
‘That’s what made me throw the line up,’ went on Mr Potts, ‘more than anything else. The money’s not clean, sir! I’d rather carry about a ton of print, and risk selling for cash at a fractional advance upon cost price.’
‘That’s all right,’ replied his companion with a grin. ‘Only take my advice, and don’t trouble Barracaboo with your ton of print, or you’ll be very apt to leave it there. They won’t give you time to open your mouth. Ask “The Hermit,” if you don’t believe me.’
For a whole day Mr Potts drove around and about with a selection from his stock.
But he never was allowed even a chance to exhibit a sample. Farmers, selectors, squatters, townsfolk, had all apparently quite made up their minds.
Times out of number he was threatened with personal violence, and greeted with language quite unprintable here. Once sticks were thrown at him; and once an old copy of the ‘Biography’ was hurled into the buggy, whilst cattle-dogs were heeling his horses. Clearly it was useless to persist. The district was fairly demoralised; and with a sigh, Mr Potts drove home to receive the ‘What did I tell you’s’ of the other ‘gents.’