‘De bauer—vat you call “beasand” in my condrey—he vork for you all de yahres of his live, and pray Gott for your brosperity—it is his brivilech to be receive wid joys and danks. De bauer, oh, de bauer is goot man!‘ ‘I wish our fellows received their lot with joy and thanks; half of my Steam Plains shepherds have gone off to these confounded diggings. But don’t your men emigrate to America now and then? I thought half Germany went there.’ ‘I vill dell you one dale,’ said the Count earnestly. ‘I had one hauptman, overzeer, grand laboureur, ver goot man—he is of lofdy indelligence, he reat, he dinks mooch, he vill go to Amerika. I consoolt mit my stewart, he say Carl Steiger is ver goot, he is so goot as no oder mans what we have not got. I say, “Ingrease his vages, once, twyei, dree dime—he reach de vonderful som of _fivedeen bount_ per yahr. He go no more. De golten demdadion is doo crade; he abandon his shpirit-dask to leat mankint, he glass my vools now dill his lives is ofer.”‘ ‘Ha! he wanted a summer on the wallaby track to open his mind,’ said Mr. Middleton; ‘that would have been a “wanderyahr” with different results, I am afraid. But I really think many of our fellows would do better if they had more of the thrift and steady resolve of your countrymen, Count. I remember when wages were much lower than now in the colony, and when the men really saved something worth while, besides working more cheerfully. Don’t you, Croker?’ But Mr. Croker had departed in the midst of the Count’s story, and was charming Miss Neuchamp with such delightful depreciation of the Australias, and all that in them is, that she became rapidly confirmed in her first opinion, formed soon after her arrival, that he was the best style of man she had as yet met in the colony. Mr. Croker, on his side, declared himself to be encouraged and refreshed by thus meeting with a genuine English lady not afraid to speak out her mind with respect to this confounded country, and its ways, means, and inhabitants. The Count, fearing that the evening would be an unprofitable investment of his talents and graces, particularly in the matter of Miss Neuchamp, by whom he was treated with studied coldness, departed after having sung his song. This effort merely recalled to Augusta some occasion when she had heard it very much better performed in the Grand Opera at Paris. Jermyn Croker, who had never heard it before, openly depreciated the air, the words, the expression, and execution. With more than one household languishing for his presence, this was a state of matters not to be continued, so the Count, with graceful apologies and vows of pressing engagements, took his departure. ‘You and I, Middleton, can go home to the club together, now that the _chevalier d’industrie_—beg your pardon, Frankston—I mean, of the Order of the Legion of Honour, Kaiser Fritz, and all his other orders, medals, and decorations—— But I daresay the first represents his truest claim.’