Rigby's Romance evolved from the fifth chapter of the 1898 typescript version of Such is Life. In that text, the date of Tom Collins' arrival in Echuca is 9 January 1884. Although missing from TS, the date of the record is confirmed by internal evidence, such as Tom Collins’ two arrivals at Deniliquin in the closing pages; ‘2.45, p.m., on a cold winter day, nearly five months after the date of the events just recorded – or, to be precise, on the 3rd of June’ (TS 521); or ‘three o’clock on a Saturday afternoon, six or eight weeks after the date of the events just recorded’ (RR 249).