The line party,
dog-fights, and cribbage. All else, including his dog Peter and his
cheque-book, he left to the discretion of his fellow-men.
Peter - a speckled, drab-coloured, prick-eared creation, a few sizes
larger than a fox-terrier - could be kept in order with a little
discretion, and by keeping hands off Happy Dick; but all the discretion
in the Territory, and a unanimous keeping off of hands, failed to keep
order in the cheque-book.
The personal payment of salaries to men scattered through hundreds of
miles of bush country being impracticable, the department pays all
salaries due to its servants into their bank accounts at Darwin, and
therefore when Happy Dick found himself the backbone of the line party,
he also found himself the possessor of a cheque-book. At first he was
inclined to look upon it as a poor substitute for hard cash; but after
the foreman had explained its mysteries, and taught him to sign his name
in magic tracery, he became more than reconciled to it and drew cheques
blithely, until one for five pounds was returned to a creditor: no
funds - and in due course returned to Happy Dick.
"No good?" he said to the creditor, looking critically at the piece of
paper in his hands. "Must have been writ wrong. Well, you've only
yourself to blame, seeing you wrote it"; then added magnanimously,
mistaking the creditor's scorn:
