e added considerably to the stock of information respecting the
early life of that personage, and told in detail how better things
began to dawn upon him.

At the outset of his new career Bendigo's enthusiasm was somewhat
misdirected, as was manifested at an infidel meeting he attended in
company with his sponsor.

"Who's them chaps on the platform?" said Bendigo to Jim.

"Infidels," said Jim.

"What's that?" queried Bendigo.

"Why, fellows as don't believe in God or the devil."

"Then come along, and we'll soon clear the platform," said Bendigo,
beginning to strip.

Jim's address lasted for nearly half an hour, and when at last brought
to a conclusion he went below to "begin again" with the crowd in the
lower room.

Mr. Dupee again appeared at the desk and said they would sing a verse
of a hymn, after which Bendigo would address them, and the plate would
be handed round for a collection to cover the cost of the bills and of
Bendigo's travelling expenses. The hymn was a well-known one, with, as
given out by the preacher, an alteration in the second line thus:

"Praise God from whom all blessings flow,
Praise Him for brother Bendigo."

This sung with mighty volume of sound, Bendigo, who had all this time
been quietly seated on the platform, advanced, and began to speak in a
simple, unaffected, but wholly unintelligent manner. He was decently
dressed in a frock-coat, with black velveteen waistcoat buttoned over
his broad chest. He was still, despite his threescore years, straight
as a pole; and had a fine healthy looking face, that belied the fearful
stories told by his friends of his dissipation. Except a certain
flattening of the bridge of the nose, a slight indentation on the
forehead between the eyebrows, and the crooked finger on his left hand,
he bore no traces of many pitched fights of which he is the hero, and
might in such an assembly have been taken for a mild-mannered family
coachman.

His address, though occasionally marked by the grotesque touches which
characterised the remarks of the two preceding speakers, was not without
touches of pathos.

"I've been a fighting character," he said, and this was a periphrastic
way of referring to his old occupation in which he evidently took great
pleasure; "but now I'm a Miracle. What could I do? I was the
youngest-born of twenty-one children, and the first thing done with me
was to put me in a workhouse. There I got among fellows who brought me