The fact that there was talk of instituting proceedings against the captain of the steamer and his subordinates led the solicitors to add a postscript: "Those who governed the movements of the Watarah are ready to answer for their conduct. They saw a lady threatened with arrest at the last moment for a most unjust claim, tendering five times the amount demanded, and having that offer refused. Hence, they did not feel called upon to interfere."

Another account of the episode is a little different. This declares that, just before starting from Sydney, she "dismissed with a blessing" two members of the company. As they wanted something more easily negotiable, they issued a writ of attachment. When the sheriff's officer attempted to serve it: "Madame Lola, ever ready for the fray, retired to her cabin and sent word that she was quite naked, but that the sheriff could come and take her if he wanted to." An embarrassing predicament; and, unprepared to grapple with it, "Poor Mr. Brown blushed and retired amid roars of laughter."

Having thus got the better of the Sydney lawyers, and filled up the vacancies in her company with fresh and more amenable recruits, Lola reached the Victorian capital without further adventure. A picture of the city, as it was when she landed there, is given by a contemporary author: "Melbourne is splendid. Fine wide streets, finer and wider than almost any in London, stretch away for miles in every direction. At any hour of the day thousands of persons may be observed scurrying along them with true Cheapside bustle." The Melbourne youth, however, appears to have been precocious. "I was delighted," remarks this authority, "with the Colonial young stock. The average Australian boy is a slim, olive-complexioned young rascal, fond of Cavendish, cricket, and chuck-penny, and systematically insolent to girls, policemen, and new chums.... At twelve years of age, having passed through every phase of probationary shrewdness, he is qualified to act as a full-blown bus conductor. In the purlieus of the theatres are supper-rooms (lavish of gas and free-mannered waitresses), and bum-boat shops where they sell play-bills, whelks, oranges, cheroots, and fried fish."

But, notwithstanding the existence of these amenities, all was not well where Lola was concerned. The Sydney correspondent of the Argus had injured her chances of making a favourable impression by writing a somewhat imaginative account of her troubles there: "I need not tell you that the Montez has gone to Melbourne, as she will have arrived before this letter, and is not the sort of woman to keep her arrival secret. It may not, however, be so generally known that she has made what is colonially termed a 'bolt' from here.... Thinking, perhaps, that Australia was not yet a part of the civilised world, and that a company of players could not be secured here, Madame brought a set of comedians from San Francisco. They were quite useless. More competent help could have been had on the spot."




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