An Outback Marriage by Andrew Barton Paterson

Gavan Blake, attorney and solicitor, sat in his office at Tarrong, opening his morning's letters. The office was in a small weatherboard cottage in the "main street" of Tarrong (at any rate it might fairly claim to be the main street, as it was the only street that had any houses in it). The front room, where he sat, was fitted up with a table and a set of pigeon-holes full of dusty papers, a leather couch, a small fire-proof safe, and a book-case containing about equal proportions of law-books and novels. A few maps of Tarrong township and neighbouring stations hung on the walls. The wooden partition of the house only ran up to the rafters, and over it could plainly be heard his housekeeper scrubbing his bedroom. Across the little passage was his sitting-room, furnished in the style of most bachelors' rooms, an important item of furniture being a cupboard where whisky was always to be found.

At the back of the main cottage were servants' quarters and kitchen. Behind the house, on a spare allotment, were two or three loose-boxes for racehorses, a saddle-room and a groom's room. This was the whole establishment. A woman came in every day to do up his rooms from the hotel, where he had his meals. It was an inexpensive mode of life, but one that conduced to the drinking of a good many whiskies-and-sodas at the hotel with clients and casual callers, and to a good deal of card-playing and late hours. The racehorses, too, like most racehorses, ate up more money than they earned. So that Mr. Gavan Blake, though a clever man, with a good practice, always seemed to find himself hard up.