. That was before
the hotels opened, and while all the grog was sold on the sly. They
marched in, dressed up as if they'd been in George Street, though
everybody knew one of 'em had been at the windlass all day with the
wages man, and the other two below, working up to their knees in water;
for they'd come on a drift in their claim, and were puddling back.
However, that says nothing; we were all in good clothes and fancy
shirts and ties. Miners don't go about in their working suits. The two
Honourables walked over to the bar first of all, and said a word or two
to Kate, who was all smiles and as pleasant as you please. It was one of
her good days. Starlight put up his eyeglass and stared round as if we
were all a lot of queer animals out of a caravan. Then he sat down and
took up the 'Turon Star'. Kate hardly looked at him, she was so taken up
with his two friends, and, woman-like, bent on drawing them on, knowing
them to be big swells in their own country. We never looked his way,
except on the sly, and no one could have thought we'd ever slept under
one tree together, or seen the things we had.

When the waiter was opening their wine one of the camp officers comes in
that they had letters to. So they asked him to join them, and Starlight
sends for another bottle of Moselle--something like that, he called it.

'The last time I drank wine as good as this,' says Starlight, 'was at
the Caffy Troy, something or other, in Paris. I wouldn't mind being
there again, with the Variety Theatre to follow. Would you, Clifford?'

'Well, I don't know,' says the other swell. 'I find this amazing good
fun for a bit. I never was in such grand condition since I left Oxford.
This eight-hours' shift business is just the right thing for training. I
feel fit to go for a man's life. Just feel this, Despard,' and he holds
out his arm to the camp swell. 'There's muscle for you!'

'Plenty of muscle,' said Mr. Despard, looking round. He was a swell that
didn't work, and wouldn't work, and thought it fine to treat the diggers
like dogs. Most of the commissioners and magistrates were gentlemen and
acted as such; but there were a few young fools like this one, and they
did the Government a deal of harm with the diggers more than they knew.
'Plenty of muscle,' says he, 'but devilish little society.'

'I don't agree with you,' says the other Honourable. 'It's the most
amusing and in a way instructive place for a man who wants to know his
fellow-cr