have been deceived before. He would argue that though the waif might be a gentleman by birth, it must have been his own fault in some way that he was in his present position—most likely drank, gambled, or had done something shady; and this would be true in nine cases out of ten. If he introduced Mr. Waif to his family, or took him into his house if a bachelor, he might, of course, behave well for a time, but one fine day, unable to withstand the temptation of an open sideboard, would be found dead drunk or madly intoxicated on his employer's return.
Gradually the unsuccessful one, after a year or two of nomadic life, tramping it from one end of a colony to another, begins to abandon the punctilious habits of his early life. His speech shows signs of degeneration. He talks of people indifferently as 'coves' or 'cards'; causerie with him is 'pitching'; he refrains with difficulty from expletives, and so on. His reading has not been kept up, though, had he cared, it might have been. He is scented unpleasantly with coarse tobacco, occasionally, alas! with the too frequent 'nip' of alcohol. If he by any chance re-enters civilised life, he shows in a dozen ways that he is no longer in touch with it. He makes things uncomfortable for his friends or companions, and is thoroughly convinced that he is out of place himself.
A youngster of this type came to a squatter's station one evening, carrying his 'swag' like any other tramp. The owner knew that he was or had been a gentleman, but apologised, as he had guests, for not asking him into the house. He was too dirty to be quite exact, and neither in raiment nor in other matters was he then fitted for the society of ladies. So he had his supper and bed in the men's hut, smoked his pipe over the fire with the man-cook, and turned in, quite contented with his accommodation.
Sometimes, if fairly industrious and steady, the ex-tramp makes his way to a managership, or even a share in a station, where he recovers a portion of his earlier form. But he is apt to be rough and careless to the end, which his English friends attribute to the necessarily deteriorating influences of colonial life.
Perhaps the saddest sight of all is the broken-down 'swell' of maturer years, carrying his 'swag' along the road, some-
