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tempt. ‘Get up, you dog,’ he said. ‘It takes a better man than
you to best me. Bring him up in the morning, Hawkins, and
we’ll give him five-and-twenty.’
As he went out—so great is the admiration for Power—
the poor devils in the yard cheered him.
One of the first things that this useful officer did upon
his arrival in Sydney was to inquire for Sarah Purfoy. To
his astonishment, he discovered that she was the proprietor
of large export warehouses in Pitt-street, owned a neat cot-
tage on one of the points of land which jutted into the bay,
and was reputed to possess a banking account of no incon-
siderable magnitude. He in vain applied his brains to solve
this mystery. His cast-off mistress had not been rich when
she left Van Diemen’s Land—at least, so she had assured
him, and appearances bore out her assurance. How had she
accumulated this sudden wealth? Above all, why had she
thus invested it? He made inquiries at the banks, but was
snubbed for his pains. Sydney banks in those days did some
queer business. Mrs. Purfoy had come to them ‘fully ac-
credited,’ said the manager with a smile.
‘But where did she get the money?’ asked the magistrate.
‘I am suspicious of these sudden fortunes. The woman was
a notorious character in Hobart Town, and when she left
hadn’t a penny.’
‘My dear Captain Frere,’ said the acute banker—his fa-
ther had been one of the builders of the ‘Rum Hospital’—‘it
is not the custom of our bank to make inquiries into the
previous history of its customers. The bills were good, you
may depend, or we should not have honoured them. Good

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