‘I came out here thinking Australia a good place to make money. I always knew England was a good place to spend it in,’ averred Mr. Croker. ‘I’m a man of few ideas, I confess. But I have stuck to these few, and I think I see my way.’ ‘I suppose we all do,’ said Mr. Frankston; ‘but some have more luck or better eyesight than others. Our friend Levison wouldn’t make a bad man at the “look-out” in dirty weather, eh, Ernest? What do you think of him, Croker?‘ ‘Think? why, that he’s an immensely overrated man; he has made a few hits by straightforward blundering and kept what he has got. I give him credit for that. But who’s to know whether all this station property that stands in his name is _really_ his? The banks may have the lion’s share for all anybody knows.’ ‘Highly probable,’ assented Ernest, with fierce sarcasm; ‘and Levison’s steady prophecy that the season was going to break just before it did was an accidental guess! His purchasing stock, stations, and town property for the rise, which no one else believed in, was a chance hit! His uniformly good sales when every one else was holding! His large purchases when all the world was selling! His unostentatious gifts, at the rate of two to a thousand pounds, to church buildings were unredeemed parsimony! His advice to me to buy and his actual purchases of stock for my benefit, every pound invested in which has furnished a profit of ten, were selfish mistakes! You must excuse me, Croker, for saying that I think you have reared a larger crop of prejudices in Australia than any man I have seen here.’ ‘It’s a fine climate!’ quoth Paul; ‘everything grows and develops; even experience, like Madeira in the voyage round the Cape, ripens twice as fast here as anywhere else. A whitewasher, Croker? I really believe this is a bottle of the Manzanares you prefer, and we’ll join the ladies, which means adjourn to the verandah.’ * * * * *