his reminiscences of a varied life, whether true
or not, made him worth listening to, so that when Lawson strolled in I
was inclined to resent the interruption. Although not midday, it was
clear that he had had enough to drink, and it was without enthusiasm
that I yielded to his persistence and accepted his offer of another
cocktail. I knew already that Chaplin's head was weak. The next round
which in common politeness I should be forced to order would be enough
to make him lively, and then Mrs Chaplin would give me black looks.

Nor was there anything attractive in Lawson's appearance. He was a
little thin man, with a long, sallow face and a narrow, weak chin, a
prominent nose, large and bony, and great shaggy black eyebrows. They
gave him a peculiar look. His eyes, very large and very dark, were
magnificent. He was jolly, but his jollity did not seem to me sincere;
it was on the surface, a mask which he wore to deceive the world, and I
suspected that it concealed a mean nature. He was plainly anxious to be
thought a "good sport" and he was hail-fellow-well-met; but, I do not
know why, I felt that he was cunning and shifty. He talked a great deal
in a raucous voice, and he and Chaplin capped one another's stories of
beanos which had become legendary, stories of "wet" nights at the
English Club, of shooting expeditions where an incredible amount of
whisky had been consumed, and of jaunts to Sydney of which their pride
was that they could remember nothing from the time they landed till the
time they sailed. A pair of drunken swine. But even in their
intoxication, for by now after four cocktails each, neither was sober,
there was a great difference between Chaplin, rough and vulgar, and
Lawson: Lawson might be drunk, but he was certainly a gentleman.

At last he got out of his chair, a little unsteadily.

"Well, I'll be getting along home," he said. "See you before dinner."

"Missus all right?" said Chaplin.

"Yes."

He went out. There was a peculiar note in the monosyllable of his answer
which made me look up.

"Good chap," said Chaplin flatly, as Lawson went out of the door into
the sunshine. "One of the best. Pity he drinks."

This from Chaplin was an observation not without humour.

"And when he's drunk he wants to fight people."

"Is he often drunk?"

"Dead drunk, three or four days a week. It's the island done it, and
Ethel."

"Who's Ethel?"

"Ethel's his wife. Married a half-caste. Old Brevald's dau