We were all, confessedly, terribly raw in all matters of Parliamentary form. One day, while we were more than usually puzzled in that respect, Town Clerk Kerr, who happened to be present, was continually sending to myself and others written slips, suggesting the proper or common-sense course. I could not help thinking that, if he had been but a trifle less of a party man, there was no one in the colony who would have made a better Speaker, with his sufficiently portly person and commanding presence, his imperturbable gravity, and his well-filled head in everything required from that quarter for the position. But this was an utter non possimus with the nominees and squatting members, most of whom, with Ebden at their head, would almost rather have endured a presentable Vandemonian expiree in the chair than the ultra-democratic Town Clerk and caustic ex-editor of the anti-squatter and anti-government "Argus". Some of the officials, however, were fairly up to their mark, notably our Attorney-General Stawell (now Sir William, the ex-Chief Justice), who, both then and since, has ever held the first position in ability. At an interval came Auditor-General Ebden, and one or two others, official or unofficial. My worthy friend Cassell, Collector of Customs (or Commissioner thereof, as I think he was then called), was brimful of information for us all, but not much of a speaker. The other side of the House, that of the two-thirds elected, was, in my memory, raw throughout. O'Shanassy's strong brogue, and ungainly delivery and manner, had not yet been overbalanced by the solidity of his arguments. Johnson, our third metropolitan, had early descended, or else condescended, to pungent snapping at the heels of the nominees, as though these sacred persons had been ordinary mortals like the ruck of membership on his own side of the table. By far our most vivacious member was William Rutledge, of Port Fairy, who, with an earnestness of manner, contrasting with a merry twinkle of the eye, and with a ready but utterly negligent tongue, gave us many a laugh. He was highly indignant on one occasion, as I remember, on hearing that a bet had been taken that, on a particular Committee day, he would rise and speak more than thirty different times; and he was still more angry when his informant went on to tell him that the bet had been won. One of the country members, whose name I am now not quite sure of, set us all in a roar, on one occasion, by taking as a personal affront, and very tartly too, as though quite intended, the interruption to his speech by the arrival of a "royal" message from the Governor.