well occupy the time by taking a
look at Ahalala. A place that had been so much praised and so much
abused must be worth seeing. 'Who's been a-praising it,' asked Crinkett,
angrily, 'unless it's that fool Jones? And as for waiting, I don't say
that you'll have the shares at that price next week.' In this way he
waxed angry; but, nevertheless, he condescended to recommend a man to
them, when Caldigate declared that they would like to hire some
practical miner to accompany them. 'There's Mick Maggott,' said he,
'knows mining a'most as well as anybody. You'll hear of him, may be, up
at Henniker's. He's honest; and if you can keep him off the drink he'll
do as well as anybody. But neither Mick nor nobody else can do you no
good at Ahalala.' With that he led them out of the gate, and nodding his
head at them by way of farewell, left them to go back to Mrs.
Henniker's.

To Mrs. Henniker's they went, and there, stretched out at length on the
wooden veranda before the house, they found the hero of the
potatoes,--the man who had taken them down to Crinkett's house. He
seemed to be fast asleep, but as they came up on the boards, he turned
himself on his elbow, and looked at them. 'Well, mates,' he said, 'what
do you think of Tom Crinkett now you've seen him?'

'He doesn't seem to approve of Ahalala,' said Dick.

'In course he don't. When a new rush is opened like that, and takes
away half the hands a man has about him, and raises the wages of them
who remain, in course he don't like it. You see the difference. The Old
Stick-in-the-Mud is an established kind of thing.'

'It's a paying concern, I suppose,' said Caldigate.

'It has paid;--not a doubt about it. Whether it's played out or not, I'm
not so sure. But Ahalala is a working-man's diggings, not a master's,
such as Crinkett is now. Of course Crinkett has a down on Ahalala.'

'Your friend Jack Brien didn't seem to think much of the place,' said
Dick.

'Poor Jack is one of them who never has a stroke of luck. He's a sort of
chum who, when he has a bottle of pickles, somebody else is sure to eat
'em. Ahalala isn't so bad. It's one of them chancy places, of course.
You may and you mayn't, as I was a-saying before. When the great rush
was on, I did uncommon well at Ahalala. I never was the man I was then.'

'What became of it?' asked Caldigate with a smile.

'Mother Henniker can tell you that, or any other publican round the
country. It never will stick to me. I don't k