ure, but from her fear that the thick woollen drawers
on which she was re-sewing all the buttons, should be neglected,--after
Dick's usual fashion. 'Mr. Caldigate I hope you will see that he wears
them. He looks strong, but indeed he is not.' Our hero who had always
regarded his friend as a bull for strength of constitution generally,
promised that he would be attentive to Dick's drawers.

'You may be sure that I shall wear them,' said Dick; 'but the time will
come when I shall probably wear nothing else, so you had better make the
buttons firm.'

Everything was to be done with strict economy, but yet there was plenty
of money for purchases. There always is at such occasions. The quantity
of clothes got together seemed to be more than any two men could ever
wear; and among it all there were no dress-coats and no dress-trousers:
or, if either of them had such articles, they were smuggled. The two
young men were going out as miners, and took a delight in preparing
themselves to be rough. Caldigate was at first somewhat modest in
submitting his own belongings to the females of the establishment but
that feeling soon wore off, and the markings and mendings, and
buttonings and hemmings went on in a strictly impartial manner as though
he himself were a chick out of the same brood.

'What will you do?' said the doctor, 'if you spend your capital and make
nothing?'

'Work for wages,' said Dick. 'We shall have got, at any rate, enough
experience out of our money to be able to do that. Men are getting 10s.
a-day.'

'But you'd have to go on doing that always,' said the mother.

'Not at all. Of course it's a life of ups and downs. A man working for
wages can put half what he earns into a claim, so that when a thing does
come up trumps at last, he will have his chance. I have read a good deal
about it now. There is plenty to be got if a man only knows how to keep
it.'

'Drinking is the worst,' said the doctor.

'I think I can trust myself for that,' said Dick, whose hand at the
moment was on a bottle of whisky, and who had been by no means averse to
jollifications at Cambridge. 'A miner when he's at work should never
drink.'

'Nor when he's not at work, if he wants to keep what he earns.'

'I'm not going to take the pledge, or anything of that kind,' continued
the son, 'but I think I know enough of it all, not to fall into that
pit.' During this discussion, Caldigate sat silent, for he had already
had various conversati