LITMIR.BIZ

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been with Mrs. Bratt some years before I came to lodge with her. He lived a lonely life, all by himself, and never had any friends or callers, so Mrs. Bratt said, at any time. At first, he never took the slightest notice of me when I met him in the hall, and for a long time never condescended even to say 'Good evening' or 'Good morning.' But one night he was suddenly taken ill with some kind of fit and I helped Mrs. Bratt to lift him into bed before the doctor came. He was so bad at the time that I didn't think he knew I was helping, but when he got better, as he did in about three weeks, he asked me to come into his room, and from that evening dated a friendship that lasted until he died.

      He was a queer old chap, and so crippled after his seizure as to be almost unable to move about. As far as I remember he never left his rooms, and his only recreations were a daily consumption of a surprising amount of cheap brandy, and his games of chess with me.

      I had rather fancied myself as a chess player until I met him. For some years I had been always top-dog at the little institute of our chapel, and had also studied the game for countless hours from various chess handbooks at the library. Consequently, I was decidedly a hard nut to crack, and our minister, who was a Melbourne University man, and had played in club tournaments and no end of matches, used often to say that I was one of the best players he had ever met.

      I remember so well my first game with Captain Barker. His sitting-room was full of curiosities and odd things that he had collected from all parts of the world on his voyages, and he had been limping awkwardly round to explain them to me. I noticed a set of queer-colored chess-men in a cabinet, and asked him casually if he ever played. He stopped abruptly and snorted in a way that quite scared me for a moment. Then he asked me roughly if I would like to take him on.

      I complied at once, as a matter of courtesy, and sat down to the board with the intention of giving the old chap an easy time and beating him just as gently as I could.

      I thought I would just make a few simple moves and let the game take care of itself until the time justified me in giving him 'check,' and going off to bed. But I need not have worried myself over my politeness. He could beat me hollow. He was a consummate master of the game. He had me in difficulties in the first dozen moves, and play as I would, I found myself tight in the grip of an iron hand. He won easily, and we started a second game.

      This time I determined to give him no chance and, spurred by the humiliation of my first defeat, embarked on a sound, steady defence. But it was no good. He beat me just the same. He was all round a much better player than I, and the subtle sense of impending disaster that all chess players feel when the game begins to lean even a hair's breadth against them again came to me in the first dozen moves.

      I was greatly astonished at his play, because any one could plainly see he was not an educated man, and chess was certainly one of the last games I should have expected him to be fond of.

      We played often after that first evening, so often, indeed, that sometimes it became a real nuisance to me, and I wished we had never become friends. He would play on for hours and hours at night, and never seemed to want to leave off, keeping me out of bed until two and three in the morning. Now and then, on one plea or another, I wouldn't go near him for several days together, but he was always so very glad to see me when I did return that I used to reproach myself for my neglect and feel I had done him an injury.

      "Mr. Wacks," he would say—he was always scrupulously polite to me, except when the brandy had got hold of him, and then he commenced everything with a damn—"Mr. Wacks, you're a gentleman to keep company with an old sailor man, but I'll make you the finest chess player in Australia if you'll only learn."

      He certainly did, as after years have proved, make me an unusually resourceful player, and he was always urging me, when he got to know me well, to join the big Adelaide Chess Club, and take part in matches.

      I used always, however, to refuse, and excuse myself by saying I was too nervous to play with strangers, and when he was not feeling well or had been drinking heavily during the day my excuses would rouse him to an awful fit of temper.

      "You dirty little coward," he shouted to me once when we had been discussing the moves of some game that had been published in the local papers, and I had refused, as usual, to send a challenge to the captain of the local club, "you could beat them all if you dared, and had a spot of pluck in your lean, mingy body. I know how strong I am and I know your play, and you're not half a pawn behind me now. Good judges have told me—good judges, mind—that I am almost a genius at the game. Twenty years ago and there were few players that did not meet their match in me, and me—only a rough sailor man. Afraid of playing with strangers, eh? Why, many a time in strange ports round the Mediterranean have I sat down in little cafes to play with damned foreigners, who didn't know a word of any language but their own, and who could only roll their eyes and jabber 'We—we,' when I gave them mate on the move. But you—you've not a grain of pluck in you—you're a worm, sir, a worm," and he thumped and banged on the table so heavily that I thought every moment Mrs. Bratt would rush in to know what was happening, and what was the matter.

      Yes, the old man's friendship was a bit of a trial sometimes, and I often came to wish he had never spoken to me.

      I have said he was my only friend, but there was Lucy—Lucy Brickett. She was not exactly a friend, however, for I was her devoted lover. I had got to know her at our little chapel, where every Sunday she played the harmonium and led the singing of the hymns. She didn't know I loved her, or, perhaps, even admired her, for here again my cowardice damned me and I hardly dared to say a word when she was present.

      She was the younger of two sisters, and about twenty-two years of age. Of medium height, and with a plump and well-formed figure, she was undeniably pretty, with a soft and gentle face and dove-grey eyes.

      The harmonium at the chapel sounded old and wheezy when the others touched it, but when she was playing there was no sweeter music in all the world to me. It reminded me of the kingdom of Heaven. Her face, too, I thought, was like one of the angels, and the memory of her eyes was always with me when I said my prayers. I never missed a service at the chapel, and, always sitting where I could easily see her, regarded all Sundays as the red letter days of my poor and lonely life.

      Her uncle—oh, her uncle—was a very different type of being. He was a fat, gross man, with big, heavy features and a large, coarse face. He breathed very heavily and ate too much. A confirmed drunkard in his younger days, a file-tongued doctor had one day put the fear of hell into him, and he had never touched a drop of liquor since. Of late years, he had become a shining light of the prohibitionists, and he argued for them, just as he argued for all his other beliefs, in a coarse, pig-headed, and persistently narrow way. He never forgot his own profit in anything, and things were good or bad, and right or wrong, just as he was the gainer or loser in the transaction.

      He was a widower and kept a little general and cool-drink shop on the Port Road, or rather, his two nieces kept it, and he gathered in the proceeds. He never seemed to do any work, but sat most of the day in a big well-cushioned chair behind the counter, laying down the law and making himself generally objectionable to his family.

      Save that his two nieces were pretty and obliging, but little custom would have come to the shop; as it was, however, they did a fairly good trade, and of an evening especially plenty of young fellows lounged and dawdled over sweet fizzy drinks to get an opportunity of speaking to Lucy or her sister Maud.

      I myself was often there, and sat either dumbly listening to the laughs and chatter around or very occasionally joining in and acquiescing with the bigoted assertions of the old man.

      "Just so—just so, Mr. Brickett," I would assent hypocritically, "you're quite right; there's no getting away from it there," and I would order another drink from Lucy, as an excuse for lingering.

      I think the two girls rather liked me, or at any rate were pleased for their uncle to have someone to agree so whole-heartedly with everything he said. Lucy always gave me a sweet smile when I came in, and on hot nights always saw that I had a big lump of ice in my tumbler. She sometimes, too, asked me about the work in the office, and seemed then inclined to sympathise with me and mother me in her soft, gentle way.

      But her uncle always annoyed

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