A OHANaE OF SUPEEINTENDENTS. 
Brown suddenly fired up, “Donel” says he, “don’t 
he done. What ’s the use of going home ? It ’s never 
too late to mend ; turn over a new leaf. A strong 
young fell »w like you to be so chicken-hearted ! Give 
up all this stuff. Don’t ask any of your relations for 
a penny ; don’t go home. Look out for a superintend- 
ent’s berth, and set to work like me and Jones, and 
then mind, if the estate is economically managed, the 
debt will always be decreasing and of course the 
interest. Take a more hopeful view of matters. Never 
give in. My advice to you is : Go down to Colombo, 
with a plain written statement of your affairs, and 
perhaps you will find some agency house who will 
not consider them altogether hopeless. Who knows 
but some of them might take up or take over your 
account?” 
But Wildgoose shook his head mournfully ; he packed 
up a couple of trunks, left all his things in the bun- 
galow, as if he was to be back very soon. He went 
down to C dombo, and the first and last his friends 
heard of him was his name in the shipping list, as 
a passenger to London round the Cape. 
Shortly after this event, a stranger arrived at the 
bungalow recently occupied by Mr. Wildgoose. He 
seemed to be under strict and stringent orders, but 
all debts and accounts were duly paid. The stranger 
neither gave nor went to dinners, and seemed to de- 
vote his whole attention to the estate, but, it had 
been so long neglected and mismanaged, or rather not 
managed at all, that what the stranger was doing or 
what he had done was never noticed, or rather was 
not perceptible. At last it was no longer concealed 
that the estate was a very fine property, with a pro- 
spect of becoming finer. It survived all the crashes 
and smashes of 184-7-48. Somebody was making or 
going to make a good thing of it — who that some- 
body was nobody knew, but it was perfectly well- 
known neither Mr. Wildgoose nor his governor had 
any interest in it; their names were mention^ no 
more. There were no Ceylon Directories in these days, 
so the curious could not turn up a page to see who 
was proprietor. It was the case with many estates : 
no one knew who the proprietors were, or if they 
thought they knew they were wrong. Many gave 
themselves out to be proprietors, lived on the estates, 
ueemed to command any amount of money, and to 
possess full power in every respect, and yet they were 
not proprietors, only paid managers or agents of some 
one in the other countries. The deception was never 
found out, or even suspected, until the up-country 
managers or agents suddenly disappeared, and others 
took their place. Even then it was not perhaps 8U«* 
