Mr Speck, (in an affected tone.) – I respond to the sentiment in a flowing cap. Glasses are not forthcoming.
Uncle Jack. – A bumper-toast to the health of the future millionnaire, whom I present to you in my nephew and sole heir – Pisistratus Caxton, Esq. Yes, gentlemen, I here publicly announce to you that this gentleman will be the inheritor of all my wealth – freehold, leasehold, agricultural, and mineral; and when I am in the cold grave – (takes out his pocket-handkerchief) – and nothing remains of poor John Tibbets, look upon that gentleman, and say, "John Tibbets lives again!"
Mr Speck, (chauntingly.) —
"Let the bumper toast go round."
Guy Bolding. – Hip, hip, hurrah! – three times three! What fun!
Order is restored; dinner-things are cleared; each gentleman lights his pipe.
Vivian. – What news from England?
Mr Bullion. – As to the funds, sir?
Mr Speck. – I suppose you mean, rather, as to the railways: great fortunes will be made there, sir; but still I think that our speculations here will$mdash;
Vivian. – I beg pardon for interrupting you, sir; but I thought, in the last papers, that there seemed something hostile in the temper of the French. No chance of a war?
Major MacBlarney. – Is it the wars you'd be after, young gintleman? If me interest at the Horse Guards can avail you, bedad! you'd make a proud man of Major MacBlarney.
Mr Bullion, (authoritatively.) – No, sir, we won't have a war: the capitalists of Europe and Australia won't have it. The Rothschilds, and a few others that shall be nameless, have only got to do this, sir – (Mr Bullion buttons up his pockets) – and we'll do it too; and then what becomes of your war, sir? (Mr Bullion snaps his pipe in the vehemence with which he brings his hand on the table, turns round the green spectacles, and takes up Mr Speck's pipe, which that gentlemen had laid aside in an unguarded moment.)
Vivian. – But the campaign in India?
Major MacBlarney. – Oh! – and if its the Ingees you'd$mdash;
Bullion, (refilling Speck's pipe from Guy Bolding's exclusive tobacco-pouch, and interrupting the Major.) – India – that's another matter: I don't object to that! War there – rather good for the money market than otherwise!
Vivian. – What news there, then?
Bullion. – Don't know – haven't got India stock.
Mr Speck. – Nor I either. The day for India is over: this is our India now. (Misses his tobacco-pipe; sees it in Bullion's mouth, and stares aghast! – NB. – The pipe is not a clay dodeen, but a small meerschaum – irreplaceable in Bushland.)
Pisistratus. – Well, uncle, but I am at a loss to understand what new scheme you have in hand. Something benevolent, I am sure – something for your fellow-creatures – for philanthropy and mankind?
Mr Bullion, (starting.) – Why, young man, are you as green as all that?
Pisistratus. – I, sir – no – Heaven forbid! But my – (Uncle Jack holds up his forefinger imploringly, and spills his tea over the pantaloons of his nephew!)
Pisistratus, wroth at the effect of the tea, and therefore obdurate to the sign of the forefinger, continues rapidly, "But my uncle is!– some grand national-imperial-colonial-anti-monopoly" —
Uncle Jack. – Pooh! Pooh! What a droll boy it is!
Mr Bullion, (solemnly.) – With these notions, which not even in jest should be fathered on my respectable and intelligent friend here – (Uncle Jack bows) – I am afraid you will never get on in the world, Mr Caxton. I don't think our speculations will suit you! It is growing late, gentlemen: we must push on.
Uncle Jack, (jumping up.) – And I have so much to say to the dear boy. Excuse us: you know the feelings of an uncle! (Takes my arm, and leads me out of the hut.)
Uncle Jack, (as soon as we are in the air.) – You'll ruin us – you, me, and your father and mother. Yes! What do you think I work and slave myself for but for you and yours? – Ruin us all, I say, if you talk in that way before Bullion! His heart is as hard as the Bank of England's – and quite right he is, too. Fellow-creatures! – stuff! I have renounced that delusion – the generous follies of my youth! I begin at last to live for myself – that is, for self and relatives! I shall succeed this time, you'll see!
Pisistratus. – Indeed, uncle, I hope so sincerely; and to do you justice, there is always something very clever in your ideas – only they don't —
Uncle Jack, (interrupting me with a groan.) – The fortunes that other men have gained by my ideas! – shocking to think of! What! – and shall I be reproached if I live no longer for such a set of thieving, greedy, ungrateful knaves? No – no! Number one shall be my maxim; and I'll make you a Crœsus, my boy – I will.
Pisistratus, after grateful acknowledgments for all prospective benefits, inquires how long Jack has been in Australia; what brought him into the colony; and what are his present views. Learns, to his astonishment, that Uncle Jack has been four years in the colony; that he sailed the year after Pisistratus – induced, he says, by that illustrious example, and by some mysterious agency or commission, which he will not explain, emanating either from the Colonial Office, or an Emigration Company. Uncle Jack has been thriving wonderfully since he abandoned his fellow-creatures. His first speculation, on arriving at the colony, was in buying some houses in Sydney, which (by those fluctuations in prices common to the extremes of the colonial mind – which is one while skipping up the rainbow with Hope, and at another plunging into Acherontian abysses with Despair) he bought excessively cheap, and sold excessively dear. But his grand experiment has been in connexion with the infant settlement of Adelaide, of which he considers himself one of the first founders; and as, in the rush of emigration which poured to that favoured establishment in the earlier years of its existence, – rolling on its tide all manner of credulous and inexperienced adventurers, – vast sums were lost, so, of those sums, certain fragments and pickings were easily griped and gathered up by a man of Uncle Jack's readiness and dexterity. Uncle Jack had contrived to procure excellent letters of introduction to the colonial grandees: he got into close connexion with some of the principal parties seeking to establish a monopoly of land, (which has since been in great measure effected by raising the price, and excluding the small fry of petty capitalists;) and effectually imposed on them, as a man with a vast knowledge of public business – in the confidence of great men at home – considerable influence with the English press, &c., &c. And no discredit to their discernment, for Jack, when he pleased, had a way with him that was almost irresistible. In this manner he contrived to associate himself and his earnings with men really of large capital, and long practical experience in the best mode by which that capital might be employed. He was thus admitted into a partnership (so far as his means, went) with Mr Bullion, who was one of the largest sheep-owners and landholders in the colony, though, having many other nests to feather, that gentleman resided in state at Sydney, and left his runs and stations to the care of overseers and superintendents. But land-jobbing was Jack's special delight; and an ingenious German having lately declared that the neighbourhood of Adelaide betrayed the existence of those mineral treasures which have since been brought to day, Mr Tibbets had persuaded Bullion and the other gentlemen now accompanying him, to undertake the land journey from Sidney to Adelaide, privily and quietly, to ascertain the truth of the German's report, which was at present very little believed. If the ground failed of mines, Uncle Jack's account convinced his associates that mines quite as profitable might be found in the pockets of the raw adventurers, who were ready to buy one year at the dearest market, and driven to sell the next at the cheapest.
"But," concluded Uncle Jack, with a sly look, and giving me a poke in the ribs, "I've had to do with mines before now, and know what they are. I'll let nobody but