Dick's position was as elastic as his smile.
He considered himself an authority on three things only: 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: "Never mind, write yourself out another.
I don't mind signing 'em."
The foreman and the creditor spent several hours trying to explain
banking principles, but Dick "couldn't see it." "There's stacks of 'em
left!" he persisted, showing his book of fluttering bank cheques.
Finally, in despair, the foreman took the cheque-book into custody, and
Dick found himself poor once more.
But it was only for a little while. In an evil hour he discovered that a
cheque from another man's book answered all purposes if it bore that
magic tracery, and Happy Dick was never solvent again. Gaily he signed
cheques, and the foreman did all he could to keep pace with him on the
cheque-book block; but as no one, excepting the accountant in the Darwin
bank, knew the state of his account from day to day, it was like taking a
ticket in a lottery to accept a cheque from Happy Dick.
"Real glad to see you," Happy Dick said in hearty greeting to us all as
he dismounted, and we waited to be entertained. Happy Dick had his
favourite places and people, and the Elsey community stood high in his
favour.
