associated Chinamen in
Australia exclusively with market-gardening and laundry work. The
house was not a very high one, but it really was its 'top-side' we
walked to, and, arrived there, I was shown into what I thought must
certainly be the largest and most magnificent apartment in Sydney.

I dare say the room was thirty feet long by twenty feet wide, without
counting the huge fireplace at one end, which formed a room in itself,
and did actually accommodate several easy chairs, though I cannot
think the weather was ever cold enough in Sydney to admit of people
sitting so close to a log fire as these chairs were placed. There were
suits of armour, skins of beasts, strange weapons, curious tapestries,
and other stock properties of artists' studios, all conventional
enough, and yet to me most startling. I had never before visited a
studio, and did not know that artists affected these things. The
magnificence of it all impressed me enormously. It almost oppressed me
with a sense of my own temerity in venturing to visit any one who
maintained such state.

'This is what it means to be a famous artist,' I told myself, well
assured now, in my innocence, that Mr. Rawlence must be very famous.
'Every one else probably knew it before,' I thought. And just then the
great man himself appeared, not at the door behind me, but between
heavy curtains which hid some other entrance. He came forward with a
welcoming smile. Then, for a moment this gave place to rather blank
inquiry. And then the smile returned and broadened.

'Why, it's-- No, it can't be. But it is--my young friend of St.
Peter's. I'm delighted. Welcome to Sydney. Sit down, sit down, and let
me have your news.'

He reclined in a sidelong way upon a sort of ottoman, and gracefully
waved me to an enormous chair facing him.

'There are always a few charitable souls who drop in upon me of a
Sunday afternoon, but I'd no idea you would be the first of them to-day.'

Here was a disturbing announcement for me!

'Perhaps it would be more convenient if I came one evening, Mr.
Rawlence,' I said awkwardly, half rising from the chair.

'Tut, tut, my dear lad! Sit down, sit down. Why should other visitors
disturb you? There will only be good fellows like yourself. Ladies are
rarities here on a Sunday. And in any case-- Why, you are quite the man
of the world now.' This with kindly admiration. Then he screwed up his
eyes, moved his head backward and from side to side, as though