fun of it; and he made out
he'd just come from Melbourne, and hadn't been six months longer in the
country than they had. Of course he was sunburnt a bit. He got that in
India, he said. My word! they played just into his hand, and he did
the new-chum swell all to pieces, and so that natural no one could have
picked him out from them. He dressed like them, talked like them, and
never let slip a word except about shooting in England, hunting in
America and India, besides gammoning to be as green about all Australian
ways as if he'd never seen a gum tree before. They took up a claim, and
bought a tent. Then they got a wages-man to help them, and all four used
to work like niggers. The crowd christened them 'The Three Honourables',
and used to have great fun watching them working away in their jerseys,
and handling their picks and shovels like men. Starlight used to drawl
just like the other two, and asked questions about the colony; and walk
about with them on Sundays and holidays in fashionable cut clothes. He'd
brought money, too, and paid his share of the expenses, and something
over. It was a great sight to see at night, and people said like nothing
else in the world just then. Every one turned out for an hour or two
at night, and then was the time to see the Turon in its glory. Big,
sunburnt men, with beards, and red silk sashes round their waists, with
a sheath-knife and revolvers mostly stuck in them, and broad-leaved
felt hats on. There were Californians, then foreigners of all
sorts--Frenchmen, Italians, Germans, Spaniards, Greeks, Negroes,
Indians, Chinamen. They were a droll, strange, fierce-looking crowd.
There weren't many women at first, but they came pretty thick after
a bit. A couple of theatres were open, a circus, hotels with lots of
plate-glass windows and splendid bars, all lighted up, and the front of
them, anyhow, as handsome at first sight as Sydney or Melbourne. Drapers
and grocers, ironmongers, general stores, butchers and bakers, all kept
open until midnight, and every place was lighted up as clear as day.
It was like a fairy-story place, Jim said; he was as pleased as a child
with the glitter and show and strangeness of it all. Nobody was poor,
everybody was well dressed, and had money to spend, from the children
upwards. Liquor seemed running from morning to night, as if there
were creeks of it; all the same there was very little drunkenness and
quarrelling. The police kept good order, and the mi