Cirrus@Austlit

The friendship between an English writer and an artist is tested when they both fall in love with the same woman. An accident while crossing a glacier tempts Lawrence, the artist, and he cuts the rope supporting his friend leaving him for dead. The woman seems to encourage his suit a little but the letters cease, he receives anonymously a section of the cut rope, and learns that the writer had been rescued by another group of climbers and married the beauty in Florence. Friendship betrayed; romance destroyed. (PB)

Temperance historical anecdote. King Charles XII vows to drink no more after learning that he has insulted his mother. (PB)

Brief humorous anecdote of a gas bill finally paid when a returned traveller realises he had left four burners lighted while away. (PB)

A Melbourne tea broker's family are visited by a wealthy crude miner of warm heart from Coolgardie. The elder, Sophia, is prepared to marry him for his money but his heart turns to her younger sister Clara who scorns him. His good qualities, courage, generosity, and kindness warm her heart but she refuses to marry him. He changes his mind when he discovers this, leaving a handsome bank draft for her father and her brother who works on the stock exchange. He also looks up Clara's suitor there, a scholarly type unfitted for marriage, and gives him enough money to marry her. A couple of years later he marries Sophia. Amusing satirical comments on society, hypocrisy, the difficulty of marrying daughters without dowries, the crudity of new-rich miners and the stock exchange. (PB)

An Irish officer fights a duel to support his statement that anchovies grow on trees in Malta - and apologises profusely when he realises he meant capers. (PB)

A bush hut in Victoria shelters a plain lively child being reared by her grandmother in a no-nonsense style. Her mother, unmarried, works on a nearby station and returns this night with news of her betraying lover's return and wish to marry her. The story closes with their reunion and an improved future for the child. (PB)

A country man feels unable to attend church until he has broken in a new colt and can resume his Christian ways. (PB)

Reminiscence. Account of a minstrel's last appearance as a stranger at a minstrel performance at Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. He recalls his fame and his wanderings from his mother and his desire to return. He dies amidst great applause after singing 'Swanee River'.(PB)

Three 'colonial experience' men on a Murrumbidgee sheep station around 1870 have their distaste for a woman's visit changed when she is young and pretty. The rivalry and successful courtship of the narrator revolve around the station and the main steeplechase event at the annual Wantabadgeree Races. An ill-timed proposal and the sight of a rival's attentions during the race coincide to create a fall - but a letter speeds the recovery. (PB)

A hammerman shows that he can break a watch crystal - but not without breaking the watch. (PB)

Newlyweds settle down to an evening reading and discussing the political situation in France but her hat trimming interrupts a true interchange of minds. (PB)

Tale of reputation regained and romance pursued. A stranger to a small town, obviously poor, takes a job with a farmer. Once it is suspected he is a reformatory boy he is teased until he thrashes his tormentors. He is moved by kindness from the crippled daughter of the house but resigns several months after rescuing her. She is healed by a visiting doctor but refuses all suitors until she recognises the reformatory boy in a passing stranger, he proposes and she accepts. He was born in England and came to Melbourne with his mother's new husband who forced him into the crime for which he was convicted. A determination to reform and an inheritance from England raised him to the status he then enjoyed. The couple sail for England when married. (PB)

Dramatic sketch style. A husband is annoyed his wife cannot remember the church sermon but can remember in detail another woman's dress. (PB)

An Oxford man spends a summer with a famous author at his house in Somersetshire; meets the family of the local uncouth vicar; falls in love with his beautiful daughter and wins her from a handsome humbug clergyman over a series of summer picnics. The girl's younger brothers are a touch of lightness. An immediate marriage is made possible by a gift of 20 000 pounds from the author who had loved the girl's mother and lost her by delaying his proposal through poverty. (PB)

A young man tells an old gentleman of his reform from days of being a thief when he stole a parcel at a railway station and it contained a boa constrictor to whom he nearly lost his life. Final ironic touch that he has stolen the old man's watch and purse. (PB)

Brief account of a practical joke - a coachman is fooled into driving home thinking his mistress inside the coach. (PB)

Detective Barnett, a friend of Sinclair's - tells the story of a case which he worked on through the Melbourne private detective agency he ran with a friend. A major calls him in on a case of suspected poisoning by his elder sister who, he claimed, was dependent on him. Barnett was taken in but his sister, Eliza, and the man-servant Crump, between them reveal the major's guilt. He finally murders his sister to prevent her leaving her money to a calculating thief disguised as a Christian woman, who had fooled her - and who robbed her the night of the murder. Eliza is shown to be more perceptive and more humanly motivated than her brother - she breaks detective rules and solves the case but is unable to prevent the murder. Written in the voices of detective Barnett and Eliza. (PB)

Three regimental soldiers at Brighton in 1835 approach a stranger at a crossroads to settle an argument over who should pay for some gin - until one of them recognises H.M. King William IV. (PB)

On a suburban train, a much-abused nurse allows her charge to grasp a wasp - at his mother's order. (PB)