One evening my partner did not come home. I was very anxious, picturing to myself all sorts of dreadful calamities which might have happened to him. In the morning I went into the town to the storekeeper, whom I understood bought the hay, but I could get no satisfaction there. They had not seen him for a week, they said, and only bought hay occasionally. I thought they did not understand me, and I went to another storekeeper, and got a similar answer. As I stood quite bewildered in the street, I saw the horse and dray coming past, and a stranger driving. On inquiry, I learnt that the man who was driving had bought the whole concern the day before for thirty-five pounds. While we were yet talking one of my countrymen came up and wanted to know about the horse and cart too, and, to make a long story short, it appeared that my mate had borrowed, on one pretext and another, from the Danes in town nearly a hundred pounds in small sums. He had also bought the horse and dray with a very small cash deposit, and sold them for cash, got paid for all the hay we had cut, and owing for our rations in one of the stores besides, he had cleared out. Benevolent-looking old hypocrite, when I found it all out, I felt as if I could have----never mind--what is the good? say no more. I had not got a copper. I went up to the hotel where I had been staying before I had started haymaking, and began to pour out my tale of woe to the publican, with no other object than to get sympathy. The publican looked absent-minded, then he smiled: he always thought old ---- had a "smart look" about him. "And so he has done all of you new chums, eh! Say it again. How was it he did it? You are too soft for this country."