A stockrider's life is perhaps of all occupations the most enjoyable, and there is just that element of risk connected with it that increases its fascination, but to make it intelligible to the reader, a sketch of the working and management of a cattle station will be necessary.

“H'm !” he said, “so, so—it is a tragedy in a prologue and three acts. I am going down this afternoon to see the curtain fall for the third time on what […] will prove a good burlesque ; but it all began dramatically enough. It was last Saturday […] that two boys, playing in the little spinney just outside Wembley Park Station, came across three large parcels done up in American cloth. […]”

And what was this, my beloved brother, but a vain yielding to unbridled imagination, which, like a spring confined to one spot, collects its pure clear waters, and in at once a beauty and a blessing; but which, allowed to spread abroad in every direction, oozes through the marshy earth, becomes stagnant, and is habited by the loathsome reptile. That which would have been a green haunt, with its fair fountain, is a dreary and useless quagmire. Is it not thus with the mind, Guido?

He hit upon all major concerns during the presentation.