to split the Labour vote; the management
of the hotel was his reward. In short, it was there that most of the
plots were hatched to circumvent Freedom, and put away or deliver into
the clutches of law and order certain sons of Light and Liberty who
believed in converting blacklegs into jellies by force of fists when
bribes, gentle persuasion and pure Australian language failed to convert
them to clean Unionism. The Imperial Hotel was called the "Squatters'
Pub," the "Scabbery," and other and more expressive names.

The hotel became still more unpopular after Percy Douglas had managed
it for a while. He was an avowed enemy of Labour Unionists. He employed
Chinese cooks, and that in the height of the anti-Chinese agitation in
Australia, and he was known to have kindly feelings towards the Afghans
who, with their camels, were running white carriers off the roads. If an
excited Unionist called a man a "blackleg" or "scab" in the Imperial bar
he was run out--sometimes with great difficulty, and occasionally as far
as the lock-up.

Percy Douglas was a fine-looking man, "wid a chest on him an' well
hung--a fine fee-_gure_ of a man," as O'Donohoo pronounced it. He was
tall and erect, he dressed well, wore small side-whiskers, had an eagle
nose, and looked like an aristocrat. Like many of his type, who start
sometimes as billiard-markers and suddenly become hotel managers in
Australia, nothing was known of his past. Jack Mitchell reckoned, by
the way he treated his employees and spoke to workmen, that he was the
educated son of an English farmer--gone wrong and sent out to Australia.
Someone called him "Lord Douglas," and the nickname caught on.

He made himself well hated. He got One-eyed Bogan "three months' hard"
for taking a bottle of whisky off the Imperial bar counter because
he (Bogan) was drunk and thirsty and had knocked down his cheque, and
because there was no one minding the bar at the moment.

Lord Douglas dismissed the barmaid, and, as she was leaving, he had
her boxes searched and gave her in charge for stealing certain articles
belonging to the hotel. The chaps subscribed to defend the case, and
subsequently put a few pounds together for the girl. She proved her
gratitude by bringing a charge of a baby against one of the chaps--but
that was only one of the little ways of the world, as Mitchell said. She
joined a Chinese camp later on.

Lord Douglas employed a carpenter to do some work about the hotel, and
be