e among whom he
applied. "A fine gentleman and a raw Britisher," as they put it--to do
them justice in their own minds only--was only a synonym for
uselessness. Every billet wherein education was required was either
filled, or hungrily competed for by a hundred applicants; applicants,
too, with recommendations in their favour, and where were his? He tried
to turn to account such experience as he had gained with Anstey, but
with no better success. The country stores required a much more
experienced hand, and one who could speak the native language fluently;
the town ones wouldn't look at him. Apart from the question of
recommendations, here the very fact of his having been with Anstey was
against him, was enough to shut him out even from the list of that most
hopeless form of hope deferred--the cases "under consideration." That
precious rascal, he found, was far better known than trusted, and more
than one instance of sharp practice and roguery on the part of Anstey
now came to his knowledge. But meanwhile time was flying, and with it,
of course, money. And he was no nearer attaining any way of
replenishing his well-nigh vanished stock of the latter.

Gerard Ridgeley's education had been of the usual happy-go-lucky,
slipshod sort which is hammered into the average English boy who is
destined for no profession in particular, and which for purposes of
after life is practically useless. The regulation amount of Latin and
Greek, and Euclid and arithmetic, got through by rote, often with the
help of a crib, with perhaps a smattering of British and home-made
French, had fallen to his lot, as well as the regulation share of
cricket and football. But these attainments, good in themselves, seemed
not to help him one whit in gaining the means of subsistence in his
present predicament. He had never even taken to carpentering as an
amusement, as some boys do, and of course of any other handicraft was as
ignorant as a babe unborn.

Probably no one in these days really imagines that living is cheap in
the Colonies, save perhaps to the dwellers in the _veldt_ or bush, who
grow their own necessaries of life. In the towns it is considerably
dearer than in England, and a sovereign is apt to represent nearer ten
shillings than twenty. So Gerard speedily learnt, as time flew and so
did his funds, and prospects of employment remained as remote as ever.

"There ain't room for chaps as wants a job in this here blessed colony,"