Bachelor, after his ordination, went out to Australia as chaplain to the first Bishop of Tasmania. He passed from that position into the more active situation of chaplain to the penal settlement there. From the beginning he took a strong human interest in his “parishioners,” and he set to work in the grim employment unhampered by traditions or instructions, or preconceived notions of any sort. From the very start, his theory was that the men to whom he had now become ghostly adviser differed from those outside the settlement chiefly in the fact that they had been found out. Of course he differentiated the material with which he had to deal. This the Governor of the settlement discovered during his first interview with the new “sky-pilot.” The conversation between them at length turned on the question of a servant for his reverence—a menial who had, of course, been selected from among the convicts. “I’ve chosen a first-rate chap for you,” said the Governor. “Capital cook, good valet, nice quiet manner, talks French like a native, and can mend your linen like a needlewoman.” “What’s he in for?” inquired Bachelor. “Forgery,” replied the Governor. “Couldn’t you let me have a murderer?” inquired the new chaplain. “If you like,” replied the Governor, shrugging his shoulders, and regarding the new settler as a man suffering from a loose tile or so; and a murderer whose domestic accomplishments fitted him for the post was duly allotted to the parson. “You see,” he said, in relating the circumstance, “I counted on the fellow’s gratitude; and I counted right. The chances of a murderer obtaining the position were about a million to one; and this fellow, knowing that fact, exhibited a dog’s fidelity, a woman’s solicitude, and the devotion of a fanatic to my person. He would at any moment have given his life to save mine.” Shortly after Bachelor arrived in Tasmania with its first Bishop, his lordship sent out an invitation to the “leading citizens,” asking them to a reception at the “palace.” The day after the invitations went out, the editor and proprietor of a newspaper in Tasmania called at the “palace,” and demanded to see the new prelate. Now, this particular owner and conductor of an organ of public opinion kept his property going by a systematic levying of blackmail—an easy and lucrative game in those early days; for very few of the “new rich” in Tasmania would care to have questions publicly asked about their origin. “Do you grow your own hemp?” asked Charles Lamb of his Australian correspondent. I need not labour a point which is still sore in Tasmania. The Bishop declined to see the caller. Bachelor, as his chaplain, was deputed to conduct the interview. “I’m the editor and proprietor of a newspaper in Tasmania, and I want to know why I’m not invited to the Bishop’s tea-fight?” said the truculent visitor, dashing _in medias res_.