as he had
put on his sole clean collar that morning to produce a good impression.
He asked the official if six months would not suit him better, as he
wanted to go away on a lengthy fishing trip with the Attorney-General.
The manager looked at him in a dignified manner, and then bade him an
abrupt good-day.

A week passed. Funds were getting low. Eight shillings had been paid in
advance for his room, and he had spent five in meals. But he was not
despondent; the _Susannah Booth_, dear, comfortable old wave-puncher,
beloved of hard-up supercargoes, was due in a week, and, provided he
could inspire his landlady with confidence until then, all would be
well.

But the day came when he had to spend his last shilling, and after a
fruitless endeavour to get a job on the wharves to drive one of the many
steam winches at work discharging cargo from the various ships, he
returned home in disgust.

That night, as he sat cogitating in his bedroom over his lucklessness,
his eye fell on a vegetable monstrosity from Queensland, presented to
him by one of the hands on board the _You Yangs_. It was a huge, dried
bean-pod, about four feet long, and contained about a dozen large black
beans, each about the size of a watch. He had seen these beans, after
the kernels were scooped out, mounted with silver, and used as
match-boxes by bushmen and other Australian gentry. It at once occurred
to him that he might sell it. Surely the thing ought to be worth at
least five shillings.

In two minutes he was out in the street, but to his disgust found most
of the shops closed, except the very small retail establishments.

Entering a little grocery store, he approached the proprietor, a man
with a pale, gargoyle-like face, and unpleasant-looking, raggedy teeth,
and showing him the bean, asked him to buy it.

The merchant looked at it with some interest and asked Tom what it was
called.

Tom said it was a _Locomotor Ataxy_. (He didn't know what a _locomotor
ataxy_ was; but it sounded well, and was all the Latin he knew, having
heard from his mother that a dissolute brother of hers had been
afflicted with that complaint, superinduced by spirituous liquors.)

The grocer-man turned the vegetable over and over again in his hand, and
then asked the would-be vendor if he had any more. Tom said he hadn't.
The _locomotor ataxy_, he remarked, was a very rare bean, and very
valuable. But he would sell it cheap--for five shillings.

"Don't want it," s