Oftener than not when the General Manager looks around among his more promising juniors for the possessor of these qualities, he finds him among the scions of the aristocratic families (for there are these in all British Colonies, and recognised as such), the heads of whom, holding Imperial official appointments, or having received grants in the old colonial days, have failed to follow any of the numerous paths to fortune trodden by their humbler comrades. In many instances the unsuccessful colonist of this class--often a retired military or naval officer--had anxiously desired to imbue his sons with that mercantile knowledge in which he himself stood confessedly deficient. And the youngsters, shrewdly observant of the weak point in the paternal career, in a large number of instances, have developed an aptitude for business which has regained for the family the status lost in the past. Furthermore, in the occasional adventures of a more or less dangerous nature, inseparable from a transitional state of society, the pioneer financier has more than once exhibited an amount of courage and coolness, including steadiness under fire, which has proved him a worthy descendant of the grizzled veteran who, with clasps and medals for half the battles in the Peninsular War, had never mastered the difference between principal and interest, much less the mystery of debit and credit balances. Such a fortunate and not unusual combination was Charles--generally known as Charlie Stirling. Him the miners on more than one 'rush' were wont to pronounce emphatically 'a dashed good all-round man, if ever there was one.' Australian born, and in right of such privilege, standing six feet in his stocking soles, strong, lithe, sinewy, a fine horseman, and a sure shot, courteous ever, yet, in business matters, cautious if liberal, Charlie Stirling--one of a large family, in which all the brothers were 'men and gentlemen,' and the sisters handsome and intellectual--was, at that day, perhaps, the most popular and widely trusted bank manager out of Melbourne. It was with this personage that Lance determined, as he expressed it, 'to waste the morning' in delivering Trevanion and party's gold, watching the same being weighed and the proceeds calculated at the rate of three pounds seventeen shillings and sixpence per ounce, duly paid to the credit of the accounts of Lancelot Trevanion and John Polwarth, respectively.