"But, my dear," Mrs Devonish said, "they all use string." And then she prattled on about the useful nature of string and how her father, the late Reverend Devonish (who was remembered by Mrs Kentwell for being too High Church) had always kept brown paper bags of string in various parts of the house, none of which information was sensible or useful to Mrs Kentwell and anyway did not fit too well with her memory of the late High Church man who had caused more than one upset due to his fondness for silk and satin. String, Mrs Kentwell thought, was not High Church at all.

So she dispensed with the string. She snapped it up, so to speak, with the cutting edges of her squeaky dentures and took the dryness away with a cup of sugarless tea.

"This gentleman," she said, "is introducing cane toads to the area."

Laura Devonish blinked. "Do you think, dear, we could have more hot water."

"Hot water," Mrs Kentwell said, "is what we have, Laura. We are in it."

But the cleverness of this was lost on Laura Devonish who insisted the silver hot water pot was quite empty and the tea now far too strong. There was no choice but to provide the water. It took for ever, or long enough for Laura to eat the two last slices of butter cake.

"This swagman", Mrs Kentwell said, when the tea was to Laura's satisfaction, "is bringing in cane toads."

"Why?"

"How would I know?" snapped Mrs Kentwell. "How would I know why they do anything? But the fact remains, cane toads! In sacks. The poor maid was screaming. There were toads all over the kitchen."

"You saw?"

"Heard, quite distinctly. 'Frogs,' she screamed. I heard her perfectly."

"Not toads?"

"Toads, frogs. It is not the point. Laura, you must listen and stop eating. Eating will not fix the problem. The swagman was given money at the back door."

I too was sorry about the first delivery of frogs. The swagman had been too enthusiastic. He had not contented himself with two or three frogs but had kept on collecting until his sack was half full. When he arrived at Western Avenue he entered the kitchen without introducing himself to Bridget who was nervous. Then he began to show her frogs and was misunderstood. Then when yours truly at last arrived, bare-torsoed with my trousers half done up, the swagman, overcome with excitement, emptied the whole lot on to the floor. It took me some time to sort out the mess, educate the swagman, mollify Bridget and retrieve most of the frogs. For days afterwards my hostess's scream would alert me tothe presence of a hitherto hidden frog in some corner of the mansion.

I had been expelled from houses for smaller upsets, and I waited for a little note slid under my bedroom door, the quiet chat after dinner, an eruption of anger on the lawn. My hosts surprised me. They laughed. They repeated the story and derived pleasure from telling it. When I accompanied Jack on his daily round of what he was pleased to call "interests" the story had often preceded me and I was forced to take another step closer to becoming a herpetologist by discoursing on the dietary habits of the brown snake.

I had never been in a situation before where my lies looked so likely to become true. I did not achieve this alone. So many people contributed creamy coats of credibility to my untruth that the nasty speck of grit was fast becoming a beautiful thing, a lustrous pearl it was impossible not to covet.

The aircraft factory began to achieve a life of its own. Letters were despatched to various suppliers in Melbourne and Sydney and Jack, who loved the telephone with a passion, was chasing timber suppliers in Queensland and waking up squatters in the middle of the night to talk about investing in a wonderful new enterprise.

I can still hear his giant deaf "Helios" echoing through the house.

We had meetings with solicitors to draw up the company for "Barwon Aeros". We looked at a piece of land at Belmont which Jack already owned. I engaged a draughtsman in Geelong to draw up my plans which incorporated an Avro engine, although we later planned a totally Australian motor. I engaged the services of a stenographer and began to dictate my series on aviation for theGeelong Advertiser. I began to think of marrying Phoebe. I gave back Jack the money he had lent me. And even while all this was happening I still continued selling T Models.

I sold T Models with such ease that the local agent could not understand why a man who could acquit himself like this on the ground could contemplate risking his life and his capital by taking to the air. He made this opinion known to me on one stinking February afternoon while the blustering northerly brought red dust down into Ryrie Street and rattled a loose sheet of corrugated iron on the top of the dark hot garage. I flicked flies away from my mouth and, without really trying to, made the agent uneasy. What the agent could not have guessed, what prompted the slight madness in my cold-eyed stare, the ambiguous movement of my lips, was that I loathed Fords on principle, that I was eaten up with selling them, that I did it from laziness because the Ford had the name, because it was American and people were more easily persuaded to buy a foreign product than a local one.

There was another factor in all this, and one I would not have admitted to myself in 1919, and it was that the Tin Lizzie was a better car for the money. It wasn't much to look at but it was deceptively strong and very reliable. This, however, did not suit my idea of how things should be. And if there was a suggestion of arrogance in my lips as I talked to the Ford agent it was prompted by my thought that if there had been an agent for an Australian-made car (like the Summit) in Geelong I would have taken great pleasure in out-selling the Ford agent. It would not have been easy, but I could have done it. I would have applied myself to it, not done it like I now sold Fords which was in a sloppy, showy sort of style, like an expert tennis player disdainfully defeating novices, only deriving pleasure from a loose-limbed flashness and not from any great demands on his skill or any pride in the final victory.

"Any mug can sell a T Model," I told the agent, and was not liked any better for the comment which was not only untrue but also unflattering to the man himself who watched me drive away with feelings, I warrant you, identical to the ones I had every time I put the snake back in his hessian bag.

I did not, if I am honest, intend to sell the O'Hagens a Ford. Had I really meant to make a sale I would not have called so early in the day when a salesman is a nuisance to a farmer, but at the end of the day when he is coming in from the paddocks. I would have helped him unharness his horses and then joined the family for dinner. At the end of the meal I could have helped the farmer clear the table, and if he assisted with the washing up (and many did) then I'd have done my share.

As I motored along the Bacchus Marsh Road it was about ten in the morning and the hot blustering wind suddenly fell away and I could feel, before I saw it, the storm building up in the south. I swore softly. The farmers did not want rain yet – they were busy ploughing in the stubble of the last harvest. I did not want rain either. I wanted the O'Hagens to stay outside so I could have a chat with Mrs O'Hagen. It was because of Mrs O'Hagen, I admit it now, that I was arriving early on this day. I had seen a light in her young eyes that I recognized.

I shifted the position of my balls in my underpants, adjusted a penis I imagined had a life of its own, and drove north towards the O'Hagens with my erect member pointing optimistically upwards.