ADVENTURES WITH A BOOMERANG.
I had a boomerang given to me when in Brisbane. I have got it yet. If the troubles it has caused me, and the troubles it has in store for me, do not bring me to an early grave, I have the intention of passing this specimen of aboriginal workmanship on to some fellow I don’t like. By the same messenger I intend to send him the address of a respectable undertaker. If you have a deadly hatred for a man—if there is a man who has insulted you, called you a liar and a thief, converted you and your family into paupers, blasted your hopes for this world and the future—just ask him, when he goes to Australia, to bring you a boomerang. Tell him you would like a good big one—a fighting boomerang. He will either be dead or imprisoned before he gets back. My boomerang is a fighting boomerang. It is made out of very hard wood. At both ends it is pointed. The edge of it is like that of a sword, and it is shaped like a young moon. My troubles with this thing began in the streets of Brisbane. It would not go in any of my portmanteaus, so I tied it on the outside of my bag. The bag then became like a double-ended ram pointed at both ends. The first notice I received about mydouble-ended ram was from an old gentleman against whom my bag happened to bump. ‘D—n it, sir, what’s that? You’ve torn my trousers,’ said he. I apologized, and felt very mean. I shall never forget the way in which that old man glared through his spectacles, first at me, then at his trousers, and then at the double-ender. The last look decided the course I should take. I might charge him. After this I tried to be more careful, and got on pretty well until I reached the station.
At the ticket-office I found myself in a crowd, and, the persons behind pushing me, drove the double-ender into the legs and hinder parts of those in front. The way in which they jumped and squirmed was quite ridiculous. ‘Please excuse me; it’s only a boomerang,’ I said. ‘Boomerang be hanged!’ said one man. ‘What do you mean by bringing a thing like that for in here?’ By-and-by it got generally known that there was a man with a boomerang in a bag coming through the crowd, and they made a passage for us. The amount of apologies that I made for my boomerang during the next six or seven days nearly killed me. Every time I made a move into a railway-carriage, out of a railway-carriage, near to a group of people where there was not much room, I had always to herald myself by, ‘Ah! please excuse me—ahem! I’ve got a boomerang.’ Once the bag got a side-blow, and swung round to catch me across the calf of the leg; the result of which was that for decency’s sake I had to borrow some pins to fasten up the rent. It is useless to say that the trousers and my leg were both spoiled. My leg got better, but the trousers didn’t. It cost me twenty-six shillings for anew pair. Once or twice I thought of throwing the thing away; but as I heard that boomerangs come circling back towards the thrower, my courage failed me. To have a thing weighing forty pounds, with the shape and edge of a scimitar, cavotting about your head, was not to be risked. If I had paid a man to throw it away for me, I might have been indicted for manslaughter. I would sooner be mated to a tinted Venus or a Frankenstein than to a good-sized boomerang.
Since the above experience I have tried the thing, and thus far it has not exhibited a trace of the movement attributed to Noah’s dove. At first I only threw it two or three feet; but as I gained courage I threw it farther—first edgeways, then sideways, flatways, pointways, straightways, upwards, downwards, obliquely forwards, backwards, upwards, outwards, and in some fifty or sixty other manners and directions, but invariably with the result that I had to walk after the confounded thing and bring it back. I was afraid to leave the weapon behind—it might kill somebody. I believe I have walked one thousand seven hundred miles after that boomerang. The only way in which I have been successful in inducing a boomerang to return to me has been either by paying a man to fetch it, or else by tying a long string to it. After this it is needless to say that the return of the boomerang is a myth, and as a myth let us relegate it to the land of the unicorn and the deadly upas.
Note.—Since writing the above I met with a gentleman who declares that boomerangs are capable of returning, not simply once, but repeatedly. The difficulty, in his mind, was how to prevent them fromreturning. ‘There were tame boomerangs and frisky boomerangs,’ he remarked. My boomerang was probably a tame one. If his boomerang had not knocked over two policemen and dispersed a crowd, he would at this moment have been the inmate of a gaol. It came about in this way. ‘Do you see,’ said he, ‘Christmas was drawing nigh, and I thought I would buy something to amuse the kids. Well, I went into a big toy-shop at the corner of Market Street, and, after looking at a lot of mechanical dolls, rocking-horses, and what not, I decided on taking a boomerang. The young lady, who wrapped it up in a sheet of stiff brown paper, remarked that I had selected one that was rather lively. It was just getting dark when I got in the ’bus, and I put the parcel containing the boomerang on my knee. Once or twice I observed that the thing began to edge along sideways towards the lap of an old lady, who was my neighbour. “That parcel of yours seems to be fidgetty,” said she. At that moment it gave a jump. “O lor’!” said the old lady; “why, it’s alive!” “Don’t be alarmed, mum,” said I; “it’s quite harmless;” and I put both hands over my purchase to keep it quiet. “It’s only a boomerang that I bought to amuse the children.” At the word “boomerang” everybody looked as if they had received an electric shock. One young man put up his eyeglass, an old gentleman looked over his spectacles, the old lady shot open her umbrella, and everybody edged away. If I had said it was an infernal machine the consternation could not have been greater. “Oh, you wicked young man!” said the old lady, still keeping up her umbrella as a shield; but just then the ’bus stopped at the corner of my street, so, wishing mycompanions good-night, I got out, feeling, as you may suppose, much relieved.
‘My wife opened the door for me. “Maria,” says I, “I’ve brought a boomerang just to amuse you and the children.” “Oh, you darling!” and she threw her arms round my neck. What she thought a boomerang was I don’t know; but while she was dangling on my neck, the parcel slipped from beneath my arm and dropped on the floor.
‘As to the exact sequence of events which followed this unfortunate accident, I have but a hazy recollection. For a moment or two the parcel bobbed up and down on the floor, until the top of the boomerang stuck through the paper, when off it went with a whizz, gyrating, waltzing, twisting, and turning in all directions, round and round the room. Maria was stretched flat; I got two bangs on the head, but managed to crawl beneath the sofa; the cat was killed, the chandelier was smashed, every ornament was cleared from the shelves. Then it paused, balancing itself on one of its tops on the corner of the sideboard. All of a sudden an idea seemed to strike it, and off it set upstairs. For the next ten minutes I had the pleasure of listening to my Christmas present smashing and banging round every room from the first floor up to the attics. The servant-maids and the children had luckily escaped to the cellar. Suddenly the noise stopped, and Maria, who had found me beneath the sofa, suggested that the Christmas present was taking breath. “This ain’t particular paradise, Maria,” said I. “Oh, Tom, let us run into the street and call assistance.” Just as we had got from beneath the sofa, we heard a hop-hop-hop on the top story. The boomerang was evidently coming downstairs.“Shut the door!” said Maria; and I did, but only just in time. When I looked through the keyhole I could see Boomey with a bit of string and a streamer or two of brown paper round its neck, sitting on the bottom stair. At that moment there was a fearful knocking at the front door, and the boomerang raised itself on end and hopped off along the passage, as if it expected more sport. Maria ran to the window, and said, “Good gracious, Tom, there’s two policemen!” “Throw them my latch-key,” said I, “and tell them to come in.” I was too busy watching my friend in the passage to do any interviewing myself. By the time Maria had got the window opened a crowd had collected, who, when they saw Maria’s black eyes and tangled hair, guffawed and made some remarks about the old gal getting clawed by her husband. “Excuse me, marm,” said the bobby, touching his hat, “but we’re come to arrest a gentleman a-living in this house for having travelled in the streets with a boomerang.” “Yes, policeman, this is the house he went into; I had him watched,” said an old lady in the crowd. I recognised the voice as that of my neighbour in the coach who had called me a wicked young man. “But,” says Maria, in a state of terror at the thought of legal troubles. “But be hanged!” I whispered to Maria. “Just tell them it’s all right—the gentleman’s inside—and throw them the key. Boomey’ll get ’em!” Just then I could see Boomey dancing up and down, and waltzing about in the passage, as if he had understood the conversation.
‘To see Boomey when the bobby opened that door was particularly fine. He commenced with a gentle kind of tattoo, bouncing round from head to head likethe banjo of a Plymouth brother. He evidently just wanted to get the crowd started, so that he could have some fun a-chasing of ’em. When they did start, the stampede was immense. “Go it, granny!” shouted an urchin from an upstairs window to the old woman who was my accuser; “Boomey’s a-following!” The basketful of rags that lay in front of the door before the crowd got clear would have run a paper-mill for a month. For a week or two the house was in a state of siege. No one dare venture outside the door without first looking up and down the street. At last we got into the way of travelling by going from house to house. By pre-arranged signals an open door would be ready for us. If all was clear, we’d make a rush. If Boomey was following, we’d just snap the door to, and wait until he’d gone. One or two tried shot-guns on him, but it wasn’t a bit of good—it only seemed to make him more vicious.
‘After clearing the town of cats and dogs, Boomey suddenly disappeared. When I was last in Clarenceville I heard that he was raging round a sheep station up in New England, and the contingent had gone up to try their hand on him.
‘After my experiences, sir, you needn’t tell me that boomerangs won’t return; the difficulty is to keep ’em away.’
P.S.—The information for the middle piece of this last story I cribbed from a fellow-passenger. I suspect that he cribbed it from a book. When I and the fellow-passenger meet the original author, we sincerely hope that he will be prepared to reward us for the trouble we have taken in making his remarkable story public.