Within hail of these summer evidences of loveliness and grandeur stand two men, one young, the other not yet middle-aged. The younger man, whose name is Basil Whittingham, is the embodiment of careless, indolent grace, but just now he is evincing an unusual earnestness of manner, both in speaking and listening. His age is barely twenty-three, and he bears about him the unmistakable stamp of gentleman. This is not always the case with men who have honest claims to the title, but with some few it is a gift. It is so with Basil Whittingham. He has blue eyes, fair hair, a supple, graceful form, a laughing mouth, with teeth like pearl, delicate hands, and a long, light-brown moustache, which he evidently regards as a magnificent possession, and cherishes and nurses as a thing of beauty. Otherwise he has not much to be proud of in the shape of possessions, for his clothes would be anything but presentable in Mayfair, though here in the Australian woods they may serve well enough. His trousers, tucked into old knee boots, have conspicuously seen their best days; his shirt, of some light material, has rents in it, showing the fair skin of his arms embrowned by the sun where the sun could get at them; the sash round his waist is frayed and faded; his wide-awake hat, sound in front, is tattered at the back, where it flaps loosely over his flowing hair; and, moreover, he is smoking a short black cutty. Yet despite these drawbacks, if drawbacks they can be called in this land of freedom, freer indeed than any republic under the sun, even the most ordinary observer would be ready to acknowledge that the man was a gentleman. One, for instance, who would not do a dirty trick, who would not tell a lie to serve his own interests, who would not betray a friend, and who would be more likely to wrong himself than others. Tender, simple, brave; fearless, but not foolhardy; openhearted, confiding, and unsuspicious of sinister, motives in those with whom he has once shaken hands; with a sense of humour which lightens adversity; regretting not the past, though he has wilfully steered his boat into the Bay of Poverty, and dreading not the future; such is Basil Whittingham, a typical type of an honest, frank, manly English gentleman.