“Well, my men, are you in want of work?” asked a well-dressed elderly gentleman, who had arrived in a carriage driven by a coachman in livery, and a footman, dressed in the same garb.  He appeared to own every thing that he looked at; for we had seen half a dozen men take his orders, and then proceed to obey them with alacrity.

“We thought we’d try the mines first,” I replied, in answer to his question.

“Hard work—­hard work,” he said, with a smile.  “Americans, I see—­smart men in that country.  Hope you’ll do well here.  Afraid not if you go to the mines.  Want men to help get these goods under shelter.  Like to employ you;” and off he bustled.

“A pretty good sort of man, I guess,” remarked Fred.

“I say, stranger,” I asked, turning to a person with a cartman’s frock on, who was seated on a box smoking a pipe, “can you tell me who that gentleman is?”

“I didn’t see any gentleman,” he answered, without even taking his pipe from his mouth.

“Why, I mean the one who just spoke to us—­the man with the white vest and gold buttons.”

“Him—­he’s a ticket-of-leave man, and has more money than half of the merchants in Melbourne,” replied the cartman.

“What, that man a convict?” I asked, with surprise.

“Just so—­transported for fourteen years for house-breaking.  Behaved himself, and so got liberty to enter into business; and now he is at the top of the heap.  In two years his time will be out, and then he can stay or go where he pleases.”

After this piece of news the convict became an object of curiosity to us, and we watched him until he entered his carriage and drove off, his coachman treating him with as much respect as he would the governor general.

“I say,” asked Fred of our new acquaintance, “do all convicts get rich?  Because if they do I want to become one as soon as possible.”

“Not all,” replied the man; “but some blunder into luck, and others are shrewd and look after the chances.  I don’t suppose I shall ever be rich, although I am doing pretty well.”

“And are you a—­”

I didn’t like to say convict, and so I hesitated.

“O, yes; I was sentenced to ten years’ transportation for writing another man’s name instead of my own on a piece of paper.”

“That is forgery.”

The convict smiled, as much as to say, you have hit it, and continued to smoke his pipe with infinite satisfaction.

“I should like to know if the company we are likely to meet in the mines are of the same class?” muttered Fred.

“Most of them,” replied the man, who appeared to be a man of education; “and you’ll find them more honest than those never sentenced, because they know that their freedom depends upon their reputation.”

We sat staring at our informant for some time; but after a while he knocked the ashes from his pipe, and arose as though going.