from one thing to another until he chanced to form the acquaintance of an influential local councillor, who got him a job working for the corporation, and he gradually ingratiated himself into the favours of the councillors by his willing ways and his friendly manner. Then he saw the petty scheming, the selfish intrigues and the unscrupulous overreaching that appear to constitute about three-fourths of the raison d' etre of municipal governing bodies; and he was at first disgusted. Then he got so accustomed to seeing privileged intrigue trampling down meritorious effort that he became quite used to it, and he began to look upon it as the right thing after all—“the right of might” as he used to ease his conscience by labelling it. Then he watched his opportunity until he got in a few little swindles himself, “made money” as the saying is; got a little property somehow or other; began to be known publicly; got elected to the council, and proceeded step by step until he became mayor of the city of Melbourne, proprietor of one of the largest jewellery establishments in the colony, newspaper proprietor, mining share-broker, and a large shareholder in several of the largest banking syndicates in Australia. But still he wasn't happy.
Gregory paced up and down the room like a caged lion, and it was very evident some terrible weight was upon his mind. “I wish the damned thing was all over,” he muttered to himself; “what's the good of a fellow worrying and worrying his short life out if its all going to come to this? What's the good of wealth when you can't realize upon it, and honors when only a lot of avaricious hounds respect for them—and even their respect is only envy after all. It's all very fine for Parson Wilkins to talk about “the duty of the rich towards the poor”—bah! why doesn't the fat old beast, with his twenty pounds a week rolling in for doing nothing, why doesn't he practise those duties to the poor that he talks about? The miserable old wretch, he growled at me the other day because the interest on his shares in the International Chartered Bank had fallen two-and-a-half per cent., and only the month before I had cautioned him against leaving his ten thousand deposit in the Perpetual Prosperity Bank just in time for him to withdraw before it went smash. And that Slymer! the ungrateful little wretch! snivelling about my not being able to get anyone else to do my ‘dirty work.’ Dirty work, indeed, the insolent wretch! but I'll be even with him yet. If I don't get that thousand pounds back some day, aye, and with interest added, my name's not Grindall, by heavens it isn't!” The prospect of revenge seemed greatly to please the irate old millionaire, and to banish the prospects of his downfall from his mind; for he hastily put on his hat and gloves, and marched out into the street, slamming the door after him, with the air of one who had accomplished a decisive victory.
V.
It was a red-letter day in the history of Victorian labor, when Holdfast and his comrades were arraigned before the magistrates on the charge of murdering their fellow citizens. Never had the walls of the court held a
