g the barman to be a gentleman with an expensive polish, whose
most earnest desire was to hide his gentility and disguise the contingent
gloss under a brave assumption of the manners and speech peculiar to the
people of the rough young democracy.

Tea that evening was the most expensive meal Jim Done had ever eaten, and
far from being the best; but his appetite was equal to anything, and the
fare on the Francis Cadman had not been so dainty as to give him any
epicurean prejudices. It was night when Jim came from the primitive
restaurant, darkness having come down with a suddenness surprising to a
new chum accustomed to long twilights. Jim had taken tea in a tent near
Paddy's Market. Here scores of tents of all sorts and sizes were huddled
together. All cooking was done out of doors. Fires were everywhere, their
glow, reflected brightly on the canvas of the 'flies,' giving a fantastic
brilliance to the scene. Life stirred around him, jubilant, bounteous,
pulsing life. The levity of the people was without limit. Their
childishness astonished Done, but he lived to find this a characteristic
of the diggers in all parts; even the roughest men in the roughest camps
exhibited a schoolboy's love of horseplay and a great capacity for
primitive happiness. It was as if the people, having thrown off the more
galling restraints of civilization and order, felt their limbs and
spirits free for the first time, and exercised both with the freedom and,
the austere critic may say, the foolishness of mountain goats.

Jim's whole being was infected with the spirit of the place, his blood
danced. He had discarded his cap for a well-seasoned cabbage-tree, and
wore a blue jumper under his coat, and now passed unheeded, excepting
when a jovial digger, flown with brandy and success, roared a 'Good luck,
mate!' or commanded him in to drink. Social restraints were gone;
equality ruled the road; all men were brothers, and friendships of ten
minutes' standing were as sacred as the ties of kinship.

The night was young, but already turbulent. The hot wind had passed, and
the air was sweet and free from dust. As he moved along the street,
Done's ear caught the squeak and the twang of fiddle and banjo coming
through the confusion of voices. Step-dancing and singing were the most
popular delights. The ability to sing a comic song badly was passport
enough in digger society. The streets were lit with kerosene. Here and
there a slush lamp or a torch blaz