AustLit

A pair of very down on their luck gentlemen in Melbourne recruit their fortunes with £300 found in the pocket of a second-hand coat - and the lucky bets at the Derby and Cup races. They then return the money to the rightful owner - a colonel from whom it had been stolen. Romantic sub-plot prospers too. Comments on changes in social position and acceptance encouraged by dress. Light irony. (PB)

A cookshop owner is conned by a boy and his older assistant into paying £40 for a fiddle with seven and sixpence - falsely identifying it as a Stradivarius. (PB)

A widowed businessman loses his dead father's and then his only daughter's fortunes in gambling with disreputable gentlemen. He twice recoups his fortunes with Derby winners picked by his daughter but when the third attempt fails he is rescued from death only by a cheque from the titled father of one of his gambling cronies - and owner of the losing horse. (PB)

An ex-convict at the time of the Kimberley gold rush reminisces of his days in W. A., principally as part of a timber-getting chain gang at Shark's Bay. An escape of a group results in their finding gold - and death from thirst and privation. The narrator is saved by Aborigines and earns a free pardon with the discovery. Includes a reference to Marcus Clarke, saying his depiction of the cruelty of convict life was accurate. (PB)

A London trip and a determination to see a beggar's home and whether he deserved charity nearly cost a visitor his watch and his purse. Ventriloquism rescues him. (PB)

Tale of romance, art and hypnotism. A self-sacrificing hypnotist and gentleman brings together the lady he loves and the middling artist she loves by inspiring the artist to paint a great portrait of the devil, thus satisfying his own ambitions and inspiring him to love the woman. Includes some discussion of artistic genius and references to Byron and Shelley. (PB)

An old man wonders on the deafness of a household when he gets home late without his key, and the keenness of his wife's ears when he tries to slip in quietly. (PB)

South Melbourne. New tennants next door to a deceased publican's wife and son appear to be father and daughter. The rich son secretly marries the forward daughter but when his mother is killed for her jewellery and money he is arrested for the murder. The old woman revives and the 'father' next door proves to be the girl's brother and the murderer. He dies of the DT's in prison, the marriage is happy, and mother, son and wife depart for California. (PB)

A traveller's account of a furiously fast train trip during the Franco-Prussian war and a little girl's faith in her engineer-father driving. (PB)

Tragedy of two lovers. He is trapped by a log while felling timber for their future house, and driven by hunger and irrationality bites into the arteries in his trapped wrist, thus killing himself. She is killed in a horse fall on her way to find him. Their bodies were not discovered for years. (PB)

Family history narrated through pairs of shoes: daughter becomes bride becomes sorrowing mother of dead infant. (PB)

A hotel guest's dislike of a menu in French leads him to plague the waiter with dog latin/gibberish. (PB)