its quite spacious isnt it.
i am sure the prisoners were glad to get out of the so called smell hole on george street, though i can assure you this place was no. there are certain mauvaises langues say when sarah bernhard came to visit they gave her a demonstration with the implements. where do you put a cat o nine tails when youve run out of use for it. if only these walls and the obsolete hydraulics. the inmates could give back if they got the chance, in a diminished way. they were quick to turn the new fire hose in the compound on the warders.
mr george pointed out the womens block and mother asked if we could visit. i believe, said mr george, it is condemned, but there would be no harm in trying. together we pushed through into the murky void of the pill shaped chamber laid with packed earth where two higher floors had been knocked out leaving two dark lines a third and two thirds of the way up the wall and the iron gaolers door shut up there where the last had been, the sunlight falling in twin narrow beams through the uncovered peepholes. such an unhappy place. they say the walls crawled with insects an inch deep. the poor souls. mouldering in the hand of. what are you doing. chick get out of there!
thats drole, she has tried to write exit on the wall.
oh no, its our name.
i just hope thats charcoal. dont give it to me.
thats enough practicing for today mite. youll get it.
careful of your dress. here hold them out ill have to spit on them.
the barber kept a blunt razor for certain cutomers. yes im sure if i were to be packed off in a black maria id be thanking my stars i was headed for longbay and not this place.
that night dad and mother gave a little party to return mr georges favour. my aunt was there, and the misses blomfields, mr harwood, mrs pickburne, sufficient of the usual suspects. i help x put out the punch glasses in the kitchen. mother comes in clipping on her earrings. i dont know why youve taken such care to scrub up she says to x, im going to want you in here all night. if you need me you are to send chick. one of the girls has started hammering out a tune on the palmer piano. for he hath strengthened the bars on thy gates. i am wearing. i dont remember what im wearing. must have been, no i dont remember. mrs rich compliments mother on the changes. melanie dont you know anything suitable for a party. her sister feints, shes kidding with you. shes a daft hand at all the hits. youve had your fun mel, lets have a quickstep.
would you believe there was an eviction on macleay street this afternoon. i thought it was somebody moving in at first but then, well you dont move that sort of furniture in. i could hardly believe it myself. the wretches sitting on the front doorstep, wouldnt even look at it anymore for shame. it was simply awful. and it was the most indiscreet bunch of odd job men ive ever had the displeasure of overhearing. i wasnt sure they hadnt hired them right off the street, i mean the peddlers for a few extra bob, what do you call them monsieur george, something more general, peddlers sounds archaic, i dont know, i could hardly say i recognised them, its all one face to me but there are more of them every week, that ill swear to. its as if. well. an eviction on macleay street, i know some of them are living more or less hand to mouth but it isnt as if. i dont know i dont understand it. frank cant make it this evening by the way, i dont know if he got word to you in time. he has a prior engagement at boomerang. he sends his excuses and health to the whole family. you must come down to boomerang one of these days, youll be ravished. it gives right onto the water. less new york, more hollywood.
waited in vain for uncle jim. how many soup plates did you say mrs rose. well i do not know about girls schools but parramatta is on the make as you say. ferme orne. youll wear pink or youll wear pink, its the candidates colour. but you will tell me i am biased, i believe yours is prodigious country. ryzanthella in the sweet crack. no thank you, not till after supper. you will want me to how do you say shut up but i shall never know how to underestimate the promise of the radically new. e. s. hall called it an extirpating war before the anti libel bill went through. then he complained the archdeacon had kicked him out of st james. convicted in the supreme court. his own undoing. the monitor came out with black borders and a coffin a la une, said i shall rise again. oh to be back writing your own rules. cest la ma place au soleil. comme les pauvres enfants. just what was to be read in that mute scowl emerging in the reflected light of jeoffrey connells fire that night on the station. tracked down with his one footprint in the riverbank. sagit il dune question de revanche. at the hand of every beast will i require it. when i was a goss i saw in a mayday parade a float with an ebonist pretending to work away at a piece of furniture and a man got up en chinois with a long ponytail coiled on top of his head, se demenait comme un diable. spinoza thought it was their protection against confusion. quel est votre homme. did i ever tell you about macarthur and george howell. howell had a mill on a bank of the parramatta serviced by a dam whose retaining wall ended on the property of a certain john raine. thieves used the causeway to steal barrels of pork and i dont know what from raines homestead old ranglehoo but howell would not remove the wall when asked, claimed an easement. so raine dug a trench to drain the dam and macarthur sent some of his employees from elizabeth farm over to fill it in. raine had it reopened. howells friends trespassed on raines property to shovel it in again. raine got his men down to start shovelling out. the two sides attracted quite a crowd before they were through. raine carried his gun. there were liquor and pick axes and john macarthur urging on the fillers in from the safety of his carriage. mr george has been playing the historian for us since the afternoon. yes i forget you dont much care for tales of rural improvement, mrs rose. you must remember however that potts point once had ridges of sand for roads just like mosman. george king the first italian consuls place was bordered by a dune. i mean waratah house. frederick tooths brother edwin moved in later and all the three were there supping in habitual style the night the news came running that kent brewery was on fire. in chippendale. you can imagine how it went up. there was no shortage of volunteers to profit from the free alcohol. if the brothers hadnt rallied. i mean a reputation for high living was here before the pipes, early as they were, with it pouring down the hill to. well, you can see from the buttresses in rowena place how keen the up and comers were to get an address in potts point from the get go, with vvoolloomooloo proper shrunken to the lowest hollow in the land one side of william street, but once it was the hill or the heights too, more than enough for one purser and a name. here, see if you can keep telling your story without spilling your pea soup.
you look marrante ma ptite. like a real little maid. where in the world does your mother dig up these panoplies. those starched collars. decus et tutamen. for a penny a week you could join the league of nations. i was doing the rounds with the cigar case. no thank you i prefer my john ruskins. what was i saying said mr george ah le pense bete, one can still see the metal ram getting winched to safety on some of the older facades, a descendant of the sun fire crown, historical obsession with your people, home and shop insurance. nervous dentists i mean barbers. balcombe. he is not listening, il sen fout, il a sa toison dor a lui. well its only natural they should get compensation but to see your house flattened, i dont envy. there was a minister going on in the papers practically hoping the sluts would be buried in the rubble. let the steel tongue swipe them hellwards with the bricks of our cursed beginning. let the old dog quiet down. what did he say. their banket houses. hes speaking french he said hes a pure brute. oh dear well it will be a relief to see some of them go. the houses. it seems an awful long way to build a bridge, i must say im glad those stone towers are there to hold it down or should i say. purely decorative. i beg your pardon. the steel will hold itself up. what do you mean hold itself up. and now if that were true why on earth would they go building those large towers, that would be quite unbalanced in way of decoration, let me tell you, we may as well each share a little of our expertise. and yet they have gauged the strain. cest an exercise in public confidence. scottish masons, you know. cut to order. not a piece left over. im not sure i see what you mean. i were to ask you to walk across a plank suspended a hundred feet in the air you would be extremely reluctant, nest pas, even if the plank were as wide as the hall carpet. but could i blindfold you and somehow make you believe you were simply walking through the front door. bref, i could go on but. he stammered. i could keep going but i dont think. it would quite come out. in your language. ah.