Page:My Life in Two Hemispheres, volume 2.djvu/158

 the leading advocate at the Melbourne Bar, and had the advantage of having a considerate gentleman for his employer.

"Welcome to Australia! The news of your arrival has only just reached me. How many associations with Dublin—all pleasing and full of energy—are at once conjured up with your name in my memory.

"Being 'an author,' of course here I come with my book! We don't think ourselves so barbarous here. What do you say to a publisher having brought out an Australian 'Orion' a twelvemonth ago, and found people to purchase?

"Well, you have come to a vast new field. You can make a fortune if you choose, but may also do something much better.

"I do not at present know your address, but will do myself the pleasure of calling upon you directly I learn it.

"Since I have been here I had a five years' training at the very Siberia of the goldfields, where there are the coldest winds, heaviest rains, deepest mud, and most wretched houses (besides the 'sweet voices' you wot of) of any part of the inhabited colony."

And Mr. Chapman, a Canadian publicist, who was now practising at the Melbourne Bar, called on me with a letter he had received from Robert Lowe, recommending me to his good offices, and through Chapman and S. H. Bindon, formerly Secretary to the Tenant League, I made acquaintance with the Melbourne Bar, the leaders of which I encountered later at the tables of the judges.

It now became necessary to determine where I should reside. The gracious welcome I received in Melbourne might seem to settle that question. But in Sydney there was a much larger Irish population, who were eager and vehement to have me among them, and this popular enthusiasm was fortified by overtures from men of position and