"No; only photographer. I am tired of painting nature clumsily, and then
seeing a sun-picture out-do all my efforts--so I am turned photographer,
and have made a vow against painting for three years and a day."

"Why, the photographs only give you light and shade."

"They will give you colour, too, before seven years are over--and that
is more than I can do, or any one else. No; I yield to the new dynasty.
The artist's occupation is gone henceforth, and the painter's studio,
like 'all charms, must fly, at the mere touch of cold philosophy.' So
Major Campbell prepares the charming little cockyoly birds, and I call
in the sun to immortalise them."

"And perfectly you are succeeding! They are quite new to me, recollect.
When I left Melbourne, the art had hardly risen there above guinea
portraits of bearded desperadoes, a nugget in one hand and a £50 note in
the other: but this is a new, and what a forward step for science!"

"You are a naturalist, then?" said Campbell, looking up with interest.

"All my profession are, more or less," said Tom, carelessly; "and I have
been lucky enough here to fall on untrodden ground, and have hunted up a
few sea-monsters this summer."

"Really? You can tell one where to search then, and where to dredge, I
hope. I have set my heart on a fortnight's work here, and have been
dreaming at night, like a child before a Twelfth-night party, of all
sorts of impossible hydras, gorgons and chimaeras dire, fished up from
your western deeps."