Johnson & Co

Johnson and Co.
by Smilers Hales and  Jack Drayton.

Kurnalpi. was in ablaze in the most intense excitement, men of every breed and brand were knocking up gold by dry blowing — all except Johnson. His luck was down below par, and his tucker bag and his belly were on precisely similar terms, for both were empty. He stood beside a big pile of dirt on his claim, dirt that it had taken him a month of solid labour to turn over, and had not yielded him a colour. Johnson soon rebelled. He had been reared in pious paths, and he knew the scriptures from cover to cover, but Job was not his pet biblical hero. He was apt to remark in confidential moments that ‘he wasn’t taking any job,’ for he estimated that a man who would sit in the dirt at street corners and throw ashes on his own head, and let his neighbour’s dogs bite chips of flesh off him, had more of the skunk than the lion in his composition.

This particular morning Johnson looked into the ripple of his ‘shakes’ to see if fate had accorded him even the first wrinkle of a smile in the shape of a weight or two of gold, but it was empty. Johnson said never a word, but pulled out a little old wooden pipe and struck it between his teeth, and lifting a burning ember from the fire, puffed expectantly, but no fragrant soothing smoke came down the stem, the pipe was empty. He  lifted the lid of his old if cracked camp oven to see if by any special act of Providence, a crust had crept in overnight, but than too was occupied by space only.

Then Johnson lifted up his voice and cursed. He cursed Kurnalpi. He cursed the colony. He cursed Sir John Forrest and consigned his soul and his politics to the keeping he chief stoker of the  blazes. ~ But above and beyond and below and behind, he cursed his own luck. Then he felt better, and kicking the rickety old shaker onto the fire. He pulled his old felt hat over his eyes, thrust his hands deep into his empty pockets, and loafed off down towards the main street, which was a mere track of dust running between lines of tents and humpies. Johnson’s nose and eyes were busy as he went. His nose told him that tucker was plentiful in all the camps, and his eyes informed him of the fact that almost every mortal thing was being syndicated.

Now, Johnson had been a newspaper man in his youth, he and George Stevens and Leslie Norman had worked the Barrier as chums in the days of the boom, and it suddenly dawned upon Johnson that he would convert himself into a syndicate. There were thousands of diggers on Kurnalpi who wanted letters written— home letters, love letters, business letters, borrowing letters, and letters of condolence. Many of those men could not write at all, many others were too busy gold-hunting to spare the time to do it, and the idea wedged itself into Johnson’s soul that he should form himself into a syndicate of five hundred shares of ten shillings each, to write for shareholders as occasion should demand.

‘ You see!’ soliloquised Johnson, ‘Something has got to be done. I can’t get gold and I can’t get tucker. If I don’t get tucker I shall die. therefore I must get tucker—ergo, I must get gold, and it strikes me this is the only way to get it. Yes, Johnson the individual must become “Johnson and Co. capital £250 in 500 shares of 10s. each. ‘I will be a concern and not a person’ Next morning the population of Kurnalpi might have been observed gathered round the post office on the outside of which appeared a large sheet of brown paper, on which, in letters inscribed with a burnt stick, appeared the following: — Prospectus of

THE JOHNSON & CO. LETTER WRITING SYNDICATE.
Capital £250 : In 500 Shares of 1os. each.
The vendor taking 1oo fully paid-up shares and £50 in cash

The objects of the company were fully set out in the prospectus, and before noon Johnson and Co. was a fact. An office was engaged, and business commenced at once. It was mail day, and from early in the morning till late at night, Johnson was kept going writing letters, making out applications for post office orders, addressing newspapers, and generally transacting the business of the concern. In every case a fee was charged — one shilling for a letter, two pence for a newspaper address, and one penny for mailing out a money order application form. Stamps were provided by the Company, and by the time the mail had closed there was a considerable cash balance in hand for the syndicate.

This Johnson placed to the credit of the Company. He also prepared a progress report, and intimated that Johnson stock must rise to at least £1 within ten days. That there was ample justification for this was proved during the week. Before next mail day, Johnson’s were firm at 12s 6d, with no sellers. But the success of the Venture overpowered Johnson, and he blossomed out of the hard-up and broken down dry-blower into a toff of the most pronounced type. He played up the whole of his cash in clothes and jewellery, established himself as a permanent boarder at the chief hash house, and in addition to his other decorations, carried on his watch chain a huge gold medal with the  inscription Johnson & Co, Capital £250. Johnson & Co was a pretty good thing!

One mail morning, a friend of other days and long standing persuaded him to sell him 5o of his own paid-up shares at 15s, and Johnson went on a howling bender. Shareholders and others came in shoals to get letters written, but the firm was otherwise engaged,  and a comparatively empty mail-bag left Kurnalpi that day. Johnson’s stock went down to 1s —no buyers, within a week, and Johnson traded off his remaining 50 paid-up shares to his friend of other days for 8s in cash and a bottle of whiskey.

The buyer, who knew the stock was good if it could be kept sober, went round and picked up all the loose Johnson’s he could get at prices ranging between 2s 6d and 4s. One miner, however, who held 100 at 10s, refused to sell, swearing that he. was going to get a dividend out of Johnson’s, or get satisfaction out of the concern as soon as it got sober. That night, however, Johnson, in an attack of ‘jim-jams’, climbed into the mail-coach and set it on fire, and standing in the middle of the blazing chariot, in the attitude likely to have been assumed by the boy when he stood on the burning deck, declared he was Elijah, and just about to start for Heaven.

He was lassoed by ‘Texas Tom’, and hauled out of the conflagration, but the coach was burned to the ground. When the police talked of arresting him, Johnson defied them, pointing out that he was a concern—the shareholders were responsible and not he. The police applied to the two remaining shareholders, and a meeting was held that evening when it was decided to throw the company into liquidation and send the assets—to wit Johnson— to be held and distributed by the official assignee.

On the decision being communicated to him, Johnson desired an explanation of the position, and on receiving it entered an emphatic protest against his being regarded as an asset—a mere chattel—something which had no interest in itself, but was the property of various persons. ‘Besides,’ he said to his friend, ‘you hold 100 paid-up shares in me at 10s; that makes, £50. You got them for £37 10s. Therefore you owe me £12 10s. Pay me that and take the whole concern over between you. Then reconstruct the company and

I’ll do something that will surprise you!

This they agreed to do, and Johnson fully carried out his part of the contract. With the money he received he gave Kurnalpi another ‘light coat of red’, which it took him a couple of days to lay on, and 0n the third morning the proprietors were surprised to see ‘The Concern’ swinging slowly round and round at the end of a rope fastened to a beam of the verandah outside the post-office, where the prospectus of the venture had first appeared.

He had surprised them indeed, Johnson and Co. had committed suicide. And there was a call instead of a dividend.