Much meditating upon the comparative antiquity and hoary age of incidents, even in a colony, Mr. Neuchamp paid his modest bill, shouldered his knapsack, and prepared to depart from this beer fountain in the desert. Meeting the pleasant glance of Carry as he was passing the door, he turned and said, ‘I must come down to Sydney next year, and I’ll be sure to pay you a visit, Carry.’ ‘Oh, do!’ she said; ‘mother will be so pleased. But you haven’t told me your name; how shall we hear of you?’ ‘If any one talks about Ernest Neuchamp to you, it will be of me.’ ‘Ernest is a pretty name,’ said the girl, ‘but “Newchum!” that is not your real name, is it? of course you are a new chum, though it would be rude to say so.’ ‘And what is “a new chum,” Carry? That is not my name, though the pronunciation is not so far unlike.’ ‘Why, a new chum is a new arrival—a gentleman that——’ ‘A black hat?’ suggested he. ‘Well, it’s all the same, I believe,’ she answered; ‘it means somebody who has just come and doesn’t know anything about the country.’ ‘And a most extraordinary country it is,’ muttered he; ‘it appears that it is not to be known very readily, even after a short stay. Well, here is my card, Carry; you can spell it at your leisure. Good-bye, my dear, and take care of yourself till I come back next year.’ ‘Good-bye, sir; be sure you stop at the “Red Cow,” at Parramatta.’ This badinage over, Mr. Neuchamp pursued his journey, much refreshed in body, but exercised in mind by the similarity of his name to the accusation of newness and cockneyism, so to speak, which the colonial appellation conveyed. ‘Most vexatious!’ said he to himself; ‘I thought I saw Antonia look warningly more than once at her father, when he seemed disposed to dwell on the pronunciation of my name. That must have been the _mot_ she forbade.’ The sun was low as he strolled into the quiet, old-fashioned, rather hot town of Parramatta. Here he beheld, within a dozen miles of the thronged and eager metropolis, a population for the most part more incurious and unenterprising than if their habitation had been five hundred miles inland. Every one walked or sauntered down the streets with that thoroughly provincial absence of hurry which is so refreshing to the wearied mental labourer. Among the lower classes, generation after generation had been born and grown, and aged, since the first occupation of the wonderful land, which has made such haste to become a nation. There seemed a large population of well-to-do retired capitalists, something under the millionaire class, who, having built cottages and planted orangeries (the export of oranges is the great trade feature of the locality), felt a calm confidence that here they could wear out life with less than the usual friction.