The Portland daily press., 1879-09-27
THE PRESS.
London Society,"
A Cool Hand.
am an Irish Adventurer.

l.
of nv calling. [ should be proud OF my
country were [ Kalmuck or Esquimaux-
how much more reason for pride have not
in being native of Dublin, which is admit
tedly the finest city in the finest country in
the world? AS to my calling, it gives me
brotherhood with every man who ever had a
name worth naming i'll any sountry-strlke
the Adventures out of your Histories, and
what's left won't be more than days read
ing And as to being an Irish Adventure
I've heard that name sneered at in my time,
but never by anybody whose head wasn't too
contemplate to be worth cracking.
NV adventures have had a considerable
range. and / could write my own life in
twenty volumes as well as any man. For
the present, however, and simply by way of
preface 10 short account of the strangest
of them all, I'll content myself and pique
the curiosity of the reader by boiling them
down into twenty lines. My name is Thorn
as Connor-an original o having been some
how lost in company with the rest OF
the family property, which had been regal in
ancient times, but had been reduced to sew
enpence-halfpenny on the day came OF age.
1t is true there were few debts besides, but
they could hardly be called possessions, see
ing that | never knew precisely what they
were. When my poor father died, nobody
not even himself-knew how much he owed;
and it wasn't worth my while to go through
the court for anybody's benefit, seeing that
sevenpence-halfpenn wouldn't have paid
for the mere whitewash, not to speak OF a
dividend. But though l found myself on
my tw nty-first birthday, better cleaned ou
than hundred tubs of whitewash would
have made me, L found no reason to COM
plain of my friends It's rubbish, and |
know it, to talk of the badness of the world
to man when he's down. You'll be nearer
the mark if you'll talk of the badness OF
man who is down to the world When
man complains of being cut or kicked, take
my word for it that somebody has for once
got what he deserved. Why, hadn't been
one-and-twenty for four-and-twenty hours
when | got note from old Miles Cregan,
whom my only sister Kate had lowered the
Connors by marrying flor he was only an
Attorney offering me free passage to New
York and five pounds over, without a word
about being repaid, and with no conditions
except that l wouldn't come back to Dublin
until I'd made three hundred year of my
own-whcll of course it wasn't likely I'd
want to do. took it all the kinder of Miles
because he was so fond of money that he
wouldn't even let poor Kate help me when
I'd now and then wanted pound or two to
get out of a scrape, such as young men Will
tumble into without any particular fault OF
anybodys; and once when I'd asked him
myself for loan, to be repaid punctually as
soon as | was able, he said that he didn't
invest in wild oats on principle-and when
aman talks of his principle you may be sure
he means his pocket, and nothing less nor
more. But as soon as l literally hadn't
sixpence in the world, and nothing left but
to enlist or else live on my wits, this very
man disproved forever all the cant about the
worlds cold shoulder, and did for his wife's
brother what l don't believe he'd have done
for his own son.
So thanked him as warmly as he'd let
me-for he was one of those men who under
cold outside hide their hearts very much
indeed-and then spent an hour with Kate,
saying goodbye. l had no sweetheart just
then, by some queer accident or other, SO
my sister was the last Irish girl II saw in Ire
land. Poor girl! She cried when | told her
how kind Miles had been, and tried to make
me take all she'd got in her own purse, which
was ourpence-Irem it now;
but 1 didn't like to take advantage, for
thought being as real Conner asmyself it
was likely enough that she too might have
debt or two that she would not like to tell
Miles. The next day, with trree pounds in
my pocket-for two of the five had gone off
somehow in the night sailed Tor New
York in the steerage of the Hudson, with
no ties at home except Kate, and my word
of honor not to see Dublin agin without
three hundred year ofmy own.
1t was lucky enough that spent those
two pounds before starting; for the Hudson
as you may remember, went down not far
from Newfoundland, and l lost the three
that were left me. 1t was a bad start in
life, but it might have been worse-and for
that matter I've always noticed that nothing
is ever quite so bad as it might be. / might
have lost all that five pounds and Kate's
Acknowledgements into the bargain; or
might have been drowned; or might have
been five feet instead of six feet high, and
twenty inches round the chest instead OF
forty, and so less fitted to take porters
place in New York than turned out to be.
But gave myself twenty lines for self-intro-
duction-and have taken nearly two hun
dred I must omit, therefore, ten long
years of adventurous ups and downs-my
perils among miners and Indians in the Far
West, my narrow escape from an Indian
tiger, my second and third shipwreck $50
that began to stand in some fear of a rope
for my end )-and come, at one bound, to
where the arch adventure OF my life began
namely, in South Africa. By the time
was thirty-one had not made three hum
dred a year; but had got more than three
quarters round the world. And when
speak of the arch adventure of nag life, l
mean the most remarkable adventure that
ever happened to any man.
l had been ostrich farming up the country
with young Englsihman named Paul An
drews-a fine fellow of about five-and-thirty.
We got on famously together, though We
were about as unlike as two men could be,
and though we lived all alone. It's my ex-
perience that it's always easy to get on well
with any man. He was gentleman all
round (by which, however, don't mean to
say that he was as unlike a Conner, as my
words might seem to imply, and always
used to think there was a sort of mystery
about him; even out there, and in his rough
dress, and in the middle of our rough ways,
he always used to look as if he was Major
in the Guards just dropped out of his Club
in mistake, and yet for all his cool and
easy ways, he'd be liable to fits of silence
that lasted for days, followed by the sort of
spirits that make man seem as if he wanted
to forget something. But though we lived
like brothers, he never told me much of his
past life-nor for that matter, did l tell him
much of mine, except maybe about the Ii
ger. No doubt l told him that, for I'll defy
a man with a tiger story to keep i to him
self. I'd sometimes sort of suspicion tina
though his name might be Paul, it
might turn. out not to be An
drews-and when one suspects an alias,
it's bad manners to ask questions L have
myself not always called myself Connor;
when ones proud of ones name, one doesn't
like it to be carried by everybody that Que
may happen to be in the course of a voyage
round the globe He was handsome, but it
was in different way from myself-that is
to say, while he was also fine figure of a
man, he was dark, almost like an Italian,
with brown eyes that seemed to dream
straight into the very middle of you, and
hair to match-he'd have stood. for all he
was an English gentleman, for a portrait of
one of Byron's Blackguards. He didn't
drink much, and he talked less-eXcept
when he was in one Of his fever fits, as l
used to call them, and then he'd show, with
out making show, that if he wasn't an
earl himself, he'd been hand and glove with
them that are.
Somehow, however, though ostriches are
undeniably cheap beasts to feed, ours didn't
do very well. Whether feathers went out of
demand, or whether there was glut Of
them or whether it was the new fancy for
cheap funerals, or whateverit was, we didn't
find them pay, and we did find them die off
in the most spiteful manner you can con-
ceive. So one day Paul said:
'Tom, let's 90 for diamonds"
''We will" said l.
During six months we went for diamonds.
I had my regular luck; that is to say, it was
,ovar anita tho mnrct Dnccib1a T Uacp'1