He enclosed some English reviews. One of two columns in length compared my gifts with those of several immortals. The printed word was irrefutable, though I could not show the reviews abroad or I should be accused of blowing my own horn.

It was a stimulating letter. I brought it to Pa in triumph. It had been quite a heady day. Pa was more excited than I. “I knew, my girl! I knew!”

It seemed as if ’Possum Gully might not have the last word about me. Aunt Jane had that: “It sounds as if poor Old Harris must be drinking more than ever.”

My balloon was pricked. Bang! BUNG! it went.

CHAPTER TEN.

HAROLD BEECHAM AND FIVE-BOB DOWNS.

“Harold” came out as he threatened after the Show, and quite settled down with us. My elders talked about him and stopped when I came near. It made the housework quite entertaining to receive a note every half hour or so. I got into the habit of replying. First I put on his table the long English review; then a whole page one from the philosopher of the Squatters’ Journal.

“I don’t know about this English Johnnie,” he said, “but old Frogabollow in the Journal, I always wonder why they let him have so much space when it could be given to the latest prices. I must see what he says.”

This was daunting, so my next shot was the letter from the GREATEST AUSTRALIAN WRITER.

“I always thought that booze and rattiness and ‘pomes’ went together,” was the response to this. “So I must get your blooming little book and see what it is all about.”

“Haven’t you read it?”

“Never read a book since I left school. I had a cook last year who used to sit and read penny dreadfuls till the bread rose over the tub and fell on the floor.”

I did not know how to cope with this. I fell into a Government Dam of silence. Books were an excitement and joy to me. In teaching me manners Ma had laid down the rule, “When you don’t know what to say, say nothing.” I said nothing. I went on with my housework. I shuddered. If I missed a stroke anywhere it would be put down to my inclination to write. Other girls could border on being slatterns without attracting attention.

I suddenly felt unhappy and full of failure.

No one that I knew had ever seen a real live author. I had imagined them as having different qualities of soul and intellect. When I had found myself in print—a suffering, mistake-making, walk-about person—it resulted in a frightful drop in the stock of authors. I had thought critics to be above authors as school teachers are above scholars. This English one must have been drunk—like Old Harris. The contemptuous dismissal of his praise was supported by Mr. Beauchamp’s attitude, and at times men who worked on the Penny Post had stayed with us, and there were tales that they could have been on big Sydney papers but for drink.