“Ay! ay!  I’d give twenty pounds for one; but the swag?”

“Leave it this one day with Mr. Levi; he has got two young men always armed in his tent, and a little peevish dog, and gutta-percha pipes running into all the Jews’ tents that are at his back like chicks after the old hen.”

“Oh, he is a deep one.”

“And he has got mouth-pieces to them, and so he could bring thirty men upon a thief in less than half a minute.”

“Well, then, George! a walk is a great temptation, this beautiful day.”

In short, by eight o’clock the gold was deposited, and the three friends, for Policeman C must count for one, stepped lustily out in the morning air.

It was the month of January; a blazing hot day was beginning to glow through the freshness of morning; the sky was one cope of pure blue, and the southern air crept slowly up, its wings clogged with fragrance, and just tuned the trembling leaves—­no more.

“Is not this pleasant, Tom—­isn’t it sweet?”

“I believe you, George! and what a shame to run down such a country as this.  There they come home, and tell you the flowers have no smell, but they keep dark about the trees and bushes being haystacks of flowers.  Snuff the air as we go, it is a thousand English gardens in one.  Look at all those tea-scrubs each with a thousand blossoms on it as sweet as honey, and the golden wattles on the other side, and all smelling like seven o’clock; after which flowers be hanged!”

“Ay, lad! it is very refreshing; and it is Sunday, and we have got away from the wicked for an hour or two; but in England there would be a little white church out yonder, and a spire like an angel’s forefinger pointing from the grass to heaven, and the lads in their clean smock-frocks like snow, and the wenches in their white stockings and new shawls, and the old women in their scarlet cloaks and black bonnets, all going one road, and a tinkle-tinkle from the belfry, that would turn all these other sounds and colors and sweet smells holy, as well as fair, on the Sabbath morn.  Ah!  England.  Ah!”

“You will see her again—­no need to sigh.”

“Oh, I was not thinking of her in particular just then.”

“Of who?”

“Of Susan!”

“Prejudice be hanged, this is a lovely land.”

“So ’tis, Tom, so ’tis.  But I’ll tell you what puts me out a little bit; nothing is what it sets up for here.  If you see a ripe pear and go to eat it,—­it is a lump of hard wood.  Next comes a thing the very sight of which turns your stomach—­and that is delicious, a loquot, for instance.  There now, look at that magpie! well, it is Australia—­so that magpie is a crow and not a magpie at all.  Everything pretends to be some old friend or other of mine, and turns out a stranger.  Here is nothing but surprises and deceptions.  The flowers make a point of not smelling, and the bushes that nobody expects to smell, or wants to smell, they smell lovely.