'And so what--what would you advise me to do?' I asked when a pause came. And, immediately, I reproached myself, feeling that I had broken a delightful spell, and risked abruptly ending the most interesting conversation in which I ever took part. The words of my question had so crude a sound. They dragged our talk down to a lower plane, to a plane merely utilitarian, almost squalid by comparison with the roseate heights we had been easily skimming. That was how the sound of my own poor words struck me; but my companion was not so easily dashed. My crudity could not fret his accomplished _savoir-faire_. (Mr. Rawlence impressed me as the most finished man of the world I had ever met, with the single exception of my father; and, indeed, the Sydney artist did shine brightly beside the sort of people I had lived among of late.) 'Well,' he said, with smiling thoughtfulness, 'I would advise you, when--when the time comes, to make your way to Sydney, and to--to work up a place for yourself there. Of course, there is your native country--England. Who knows? Some day, perhaps-- But, meantime, I think Sydney offers better chances than any other place in this country. Yes, I think so. Have you any special leanings? Is there any particular work that you are specially keen on?' Like a flash the thought passed through my mind: 'What a miserable creature I must be! There's nothing I particularly want to do. If he finds that out, there's an end to any interest in me, of course. Why haven't I thought of this before? What can I say?' And in the same moment, without appreciable pause, I was startled, but agreeably startled, to hear my own voice saying in quite an intelligent way: 'Well, my father wrote, of course; his work was literary work, and--newspapers, you know.' I can answer for it that I had never till that moment given a single thought to any such notion as a literary career for myself. As well think of a prime minister's career, I should have thought. But, as I well remember, my very accent, intonation, and choice of words had all insensibly changed to fit, as I thought, the taste and habit of my new friend. And I felt it would be an extravagant folly to talk to him as I had talked with Ted, or as I talked with fellow orphans at St. Peter's, of 'pound-er-week-an'-all-found' jobs, or the 'good money' there was 'in carting,' or the fine careers that offered in connection with the construction of new railways. I had often been told you could not beat the job of cooking for a shearers' or a navvies' camp; and that a wideawake boy could earn 'good money' while learning it, as a rouseabout assistant. It seemed to me that there would have been something too absurdly incongruous in attempting to talk of such things to Mr. Rawlence. Hence, perhaps, my audacious suggestion of the literary career. There I might secure his interest. And, sure enough, I did.