s of more use to us than gentility. Each single bricklayer
who unships serves the colony better than a score of gentlemen."

"In that I am absolutely not at one with you, Mr. Turnham," said Mahony
coldly. He had sat down again, feeling rather ashamed of his violence.
"Without a leaven of refinement, the very raw material of which the
existing population is composed--"

But Turnham interrupted him. "Give 'em time, sir, give 'em time. God
bless my soul! Rome wasn't built in a day. But to resume. I have
repeatedly had occasion to remark in what small stead the training that
fits a man for a career in the old country stands him here. And that is
why I am dissatisfied with your reply. Show me your muscles, sir, give
me a clean bill of health, tell me if you have learnt a trade and can
pay your way. See, I will be frank with you. The position I occupy
to-day I owe entirely to my own efforts. I landed in the colony ten
years ago, when this marvellous city of ours was little more than a
village settlement. I had but five pounds in my pocket. To-day I am a
partner in my firm, and intend, if all goes well, to enter parliament.
Hence I think I may, without presumption, judge what makes for success
here, and of the type of man to attain it. Work, hard work, is the key
to all doors. So convinced am I of this, that I have insisted on the
younger members of my family learning betimes to put their shoulders to
the wheel. Now, Mr. Mahony, I have been open with you. Be equally frank
with me. You are an Irishman?"

Candour invariably disarmed Mahony--even lay a little heavy on him,
with the weight of an obligation. He retaliated with a light touch of
self-depreciation. "An Irishman, sir, in a country where the Irish have
fallen, and not without reason, into general disrepute."

Over a biscuit and a glass of sherry he gave a rough outline of the
circumstances that had led to his leaving England, two years
previously, and of his dismayed arrival in what he called "the cesspool
of 1852".

"Thanks to the rose-water romance of the English press, many a young
man of my day was enticed away from a modest competency, to seek his
fortune here, where it was pretended that nuggets could be gathered
like cabbages--I myself threw up a tidy little country practice.... I
might mention that medicine was my profession. It would have given me
intense satisfaction, Mr. Turnham, to see one of those glib journalists
in my shoes, or the shoes of some of m