THE LAST OF MR. JONES. 
pected ; for those who took their place to be consi- 
dered agents of their predecessors who had disappeared, 
‘‘gone home with a fortune.” Fortune indeed!! 
Mr. Jones now commenced to have long conversa- 
tions with Mr. Brown on the prospects of superintend- 
ents. He did not believe there were any be 3 ’ond 
ten, twelve, or fifteen pounds a month, and what were 
they to do, if they lost their health or got old in 
harness ? They could not save, and unless they had 
any prospects of money fv’om their relations could 
never become proprietors, and, even if they could, what 
was the use? Whoever made money by coffee plant- 
ing ? Hid they not see that all those with capital who 
invested, instead of inakiog, lost. The whole affair 
was a humbug and delusion. He was determined to 
cut it and go to Australia. Would Brown come with 
him? But Brown said : “No, I have faith in coffee, 
if people would only do it justice.” He then stepped a 
little wav out from the bungalow, and shewed Jones half- 
a-dozen of trees, and asked him what he thought of them. 
“ Well,” says Jones, “they must have at least at 
the rate of ten or twelve cwts per acre on them, 
and if you only could get all the estate like that, 
it would be a fortune. ’ 
Brown said: — “The whole estate could be made 
nice that, if it was properly" cultivated. With my own 
bands I have regularly pruned, handled and manured 
these trees as an experiment, and you see the result. 
Depend upon it, the day wull come when proprietors 
and agents will come to my ideas as correct, and 
the sj^stem of high cultivation will become a science ; 
educated and intelligent men wdli be sought after as 
managers, and salar es will be given on an average 
of from £.300 to £500 per amium. Coffee es ates will 
become good permanent investments, and proprietors, 
instead of making haste to be rich, in such haste 
that they always remain poor, will not sell their es- 
tates, but look upon them as the. best investment for 
money. The superintendents will share in the pro- 
sperity. They will have good bungalows, plank floors, 
and even glass windows ! They will.” But Jones 
stopped him. ‘ ‘ A truce to all this nonsense. I don’t 
believe a word of it —coffee planting is on its last 
legs, it’s a failure. I’m off to Australia.” He held 
Brown with the right hand, with the left he pointed 
to the “Peacock Hill” and the “Sentry Box.” “You 
see those two hills : they may meet : some convulsion 
of nature may throw them together, but we will 
never meet again. Goodbye, old fellow.” 
He sailed from Colombo to Port Philip in the TorHng- 
ton, along with a number of others, and was neither seen 
nor heard of any more by his former associate in Ceylon. 
