There was no farther private conversation between the two. Hayes Meredith devoted himself to Mr. Carteret, whose placid character afforded him considerable amusement, in its contrast with those of the bustling and energetic companions of his ordinary life. To Mr. Carteret, Hayes Meredith was an altogether new and delightful _trouvaille_. That he came from a new world, of infinite interest and importance to England; that he could tell of his own personal experience, particulars of the great events, political, commercial, and social, to which colonial enterprise had given rise; that, as a member of a strange community, with all the interest of a foreign land, and all the sympathy of fellowship of race attaching to them, Mr. Carteret knew, if he had cared to think about it, and he might perhaps, merely as an intellectual exercise, have comprehended, that there was something remarkable about his guest in that aspect. But he did not care about it in the least. The political, social, and commercial life of either this half of the world or the other half was a matter of entire indifference to him. He was eminently desirous to ascertain, as soon as politeness warranted the inquiry, whether Mr. Meredith had brought to England the "specimens" which James Dugdale had bespoken, and that point satisfactorily disposed of, and an early hour on the following day appointed for their disinterment from the general mass of luggage, he turned the conversation without delay on the cranial peculiarities of "black fellows," the number of species into which the marsupial genus may be divided, and the properties of the turpentine tree. On all these matters Hayes Meredith sustained a very creditable examination, and during its course rapidly arrived at a very kindly feeling towards his gentle and eccentric but eminently kind-hearted entertainer. There was a curious occult sympathy between the minds of James Dugdale and Hayes Meredith, as the latter thought: "If it could be hidden from the poor old gentleman, and I really see no reason why he should ever know it, what a good thing it will be!"