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Horrie Jacobs was one of the smallest adults ever to walk into my office. With his shoes on his feet and his hat on his head he still wouldn’t have topped five feet by more than an inch. He was a compactly built, neat old man in a grey suit, no tie and with the Newcastle Herald under his arm. . He made the office look big, which it isn’t.

‘My name’s Horrie Jacobs, Mr Hardy. I’m from Newcastle. ’

I shook his hand and waved him into the client’s chair, thinking that Novocastrians do that. You don’t find Wollongongites saying ‘I’m from Wollongong’. I have a feeling they might do it a bit in Queensland-’I’m from Rocky’- that kind of thing. I sat behind my desk, which is from Darlinghurst Office Disposals, and asked Mr Jacobs what I could do for him.

He sat, put his newspaper on the floor by his chair, took off his hat and said, ‘You’ve heard of the Newcastle earthquake?’

I nodded. Who hadn’t? It rocked Sydney and parts south, east and west, caused a lot of damage in Newcastle and killed about a dozen people up there.

‘I lived in Newcastle all my life, never saw anything like it. ’ Horrie Jacobs fiddled with his hat. ‘Bricks flying around in the air. I missed out on the war but I reckon it must’ve been something like that. One of them bricks hit you and you were a goner. ’

I’d taken out a notepad and written down the date and the client’s name the way the regulations governing the private enquiry agent’s trade say to do, but I wasn’t too hopeful of getting any business here. I judged his age to be about seventy. He looked like a man who’d worked hard all his life. His skin was weatherbeaten and his hands had the enlargement that goes with manual work. You don’t see it much anymore; I couldn’t remember ever having a client with wrists and hands like Horrie’s-not a paying client.

I doodled on the pad-120, 150, 175-the sliding scale of per diem dollar rate I daydreamed about charging clients according to their problems and means. The trouble was, I hadn’t had any clients since I’d come up with the idea. If the Treasurer wanted the economy to slow I could show him what snail’s pace was, right here. I decided to be kind. ‘I don’t handle insurance matters, Mr Jacobs. I don’t know if you’ve dealt with any of the big insurance companies lately, but they’re not too unreasonable and you can get legal help with…’

Jacobs leaned forward in the uncomfortable chair. ‘I don’t need legal help, mate. I’m not after insurance. I live at Dudley, fifteen miles out of Newcastle. I felt the bloody quake but I didn’t lose anything. Not so much as a bloody glass. ’

‘Good,’ I said. ‘Well, what’s the problem?’ As he leaned forward I noticed that his suit was well cut and that his pale blue shirt was medium expensive. I cursed the Treasurer and circled 150 on the pad.

He looked around the room, taking in the basic furnishings and low level of maintenance. I’d never heard of Dudley. Maybe it was a place for rich, retired jockeys and horse trainers or film stunt men. With his looks and build Horrie could have been any of these. In any case he seemed to be used to a better standard of accommodation. ‘What do you charge?’ he said.