We broke the flaming red seal of our friend's letter, and read as follows:—
MELBOURNE, Jan. 24th, 18—.
My dear friends: You may believe that I was astonished when I got your letter. Such damnable scrapes as you two are always getting into, warrants me in saying that a keeper is needed in your store to take the entire charge of you. I wish that I could get away for a few days; I'd run up and lend you a helping hand to clear up that shocking affair.
As I can't leave, I send Steel Spring, agreeable to request. May you make the most of him, for such a liar never went unhanged. As an incentive to stir himself in your behalf, I thrashed him like the devil on the afternoon that he left, and promised a repetition unless he obeyed orders, and followed your directions to the letter.
I find that the oftener I lick him the better he likes me; and he actually pretended to feel grieved at parting. I have great hope that he will live long enough to be honest; but I have reasonable doubts of the scheme, and it would not surprise me any day to hear that he had taken to the bush. Still, I must say that I find him useful in a number of ways; and a better detective cannot be found in the country, for no matter what I have placed him on, he has followed it up until the mystery was unravelled.
Yesterday, a ship load of interesting girls, many of them in interesting conditions, arrived from England, being sent out by a society for the prevention of pauperism, or something like it. They are intended as wives for us poor colonists; and I wish that you had been here, to have seen the fun and the rush for the first choice. The ship was surrounded by boats, until at length the crowd was so great I had to take twenty-five men, and hire a steamboat to carry us down the river, to where the vessel was lying. The uproar and confusion was great—terrific.
Men wanted their first pick, and swore frightfully when they couldn't be gratified. The women all wanted stout, healthy husbands, and rich ones at that, and they shrieked some when told that they must take them by lot.
However, sooner than go unmarried, the girls at length consented to any arrangement that was proposed; and then what a time we had of it! for you are well aware that delicacy is not a characteristic of Australia. Amidst the crowd, struggling for a wife right manfully, did I observe the teamster whom Smith has in his employ, and who made you one visit with his load of goods while I was at Ballarat. He did honor to the firm, for the fellow got one of the best looking (and I will say at the same time, one of the most vicious, if I am any judge of faces) on board, out of a cargo of one hundred and ninety-eight.
I asked your man what he intended to do with a wife in his circumstances.
"Marry her," he replied, "and take her to Ballarat, and go into the mining business."