My dear friends: You may believe that I was astonished when I got
your letter. Such damnable scrapes as you two are always getting
into, warrants me in saying that a keeper is needed in your store
to take the entire charge of you. I wish that I could get away for
a few days; I'd run up and lend you a helping hand to clear up
that shocking affair.

As I can't leave, I send Steel Spring, agreeable to request. May
you make the most of him, for such a liar never went unhanged. As
an incentive to stir himself in your behalf, I thrashed him like
the devil on the afternoon that he left, and promised a repetition
unless he obeyed orders, and followed your directions to the
letter.

I find that the oftener I lick him the better he likes me; and he
actually pretended to feel grieved at parting. I have great hope
that he will live long enough to be honest; but I have reasonable
doubts of the scheme, and it would not surprise me any day to hear
that he had taken to the bush. Still, I must say that I find him
useful in a number of ways; and a better detective cannot be found
in the country, for no matter what I have placed him on, he has
followed it up until the mystery was unravelled.

Yesterday, a ship load of interesting girls, many of them in
interesting conditions, arrived from England, being sent out by a
society for the prevention of pauperism, or something like it.
They are intended as wives for us poor colonists; and I wish that
you had been here, to have seen the fun and the rush for the first
choice. The ship was surrounded by boats, until at length the
crowd was so great I had to take twenty-five men, and hire a
steamboat to carry us down the river, to where the vessel was
lying. The uproar and confusion was great--terrific.

Men wanted their first pick, and swore frightfully when they
couldn't be gratified. The women all wanted stout, healthy
husbands, and rich ones at that, and they shrieked some when told
that they must take them by lot.

However, sooner than go unmarried, the girls at length consented
to any arrangement that was proposed; and then what a time we had
of it! for you are well aware that delicacy is not a
characteristic of Australia. Amidst the crowd, struggling for a
wife right manfully, did I observe the teamster whom Smith has in
his emplo