y messmates on the OCEAN QUEEN.
There were men aboard that ship, sir, who were reduced to beggary
before they could even set foot on the road to the north. Granted it is
the duty of the press to encourage emigration--"

"Let the press be, Mahony," said Turnham: he had sat back, crossed his
legs, and put his thumbs in his armholes. "Let it be. What we need here
is colonists--small matter how we get 'em."

Having had his say, Mahony scamped the recital of his own sufferings:
the discomforts of the month he had been forced to spend in Melbourne
getting his slender outfit together; the miseries of the tramp to
Ballarat on delicate unused feet, among the riff-raff of nations, under
a wan December sky, against which the trunks of the gum-trees rose
whiter still, and out of which blazed a copper sun with a misty rim. He
scamped, too, his six-months' attempt at digging--he had been no more
fit for the work than a child. Worn to skin and bone, his small
remaining strength sucked out by dysentery, he had in the end bartered
his last pinch of gold-dust for a barrow-load of useful odds and ends;
and this had formed the nucleus of his store. Here, fortune had smiled
on him; his flag hardly set a-flying custom had poured in, business
gone up by leaps and bounds--"Although I have never sold so much as a
pint of spirits, sir!" His profits for the past six months equalled a
clear three hundred, and he had most of this to the good. With a wife
to keep, expenses would naturally be heavier; but he should continue to
lay by every spare penny, with a view to getting back to England.

"You have not the intention, then, of remaining permanently in the
colony?"

"Not the least in the world."

"H'm," said John: he was standing on the hearthrug now, his legs apart.
"That, of course, puts a different complexion on the matter. Still, I
may say I am entirely reassured by what you have told me--entirely so.
Indeed, you must allow me to congratulate you on the good sense you
displayed in striking while the iron was hot. Many a one of your
medical brethren, sir, would have thought it beneath his dignity to
turn shopkeeper. And now, Mr. Mahony, I will wish you good day; we
shall doubtless meet again before very long. Nay, one moment! There are
cases, you will admit, in which a female opinion is not without value.
Besides, I should be pleased for you to see my wife."

He crossed the hall, tapped at a door and cried: "Emma, my love, will
you give u