eatures I was ever in. I never pass a day without meeting some
fresh variety of the human race, man or woman; and their experiences
are well worth knowing, I can tell you. Not that they're in a hurry to
impart them; for that there's more natural, unaffected good manners on
a digging than in any society I ever mingled in I shall never doubt.
But when they see you don't want to patronise, and are content to be
a simple man among men, there's nothing they won't do for you or tell
you.'

'Oh, d--n one's fellow-creatures; present company excepted,' says
Mr. Despard, filling his glass, 'and the man that grew this "tipple".
They're useful to me now and then and one has to put up with this crowd;
but I never could take much interest in them.'

'All the worse for you, Despard,' says Clifford. 'You're wasting your
chances--golden opportunities in every sense of the word. You'll never
see such a spectacle as this, perhaps, again as long as you live. It's a
fancy dress ball with real characters.'

'Dashed bad characters, if we only knew,' says Despard, yawning. 'What
do you say, Haughton?' looking at Starlight, who was playing with his
glass and not listening much by the look of him.

'I say, let's go into the little parlour and have a game of picquet,
unless you'll take some more wine. No? Then we'll move. Bad characters,
you were saying? Well, you camp fellows ought to be able to give an
opinion.'

They sauntered through the big room, which was just then crowded with a
curious company, as Clifford said. I suppose there was every kind of man
and miner under the sun. Not many women, but what there was not a little
out of the way in looks and manners. We kept on working away all the
time. It helped to stop us from thinking, and every week we had a bigger
deposit-receipt in the bank where we used to sell our gold. People may
say what they like, but there's nothing like a nest egg; seeing it grow
bigger keeps many a fellow straight, and he gets to like adding to it,
and feels the pull of being careful with his money, which a poor man
that never has anything worth saving doesn't. Poor men are the most
extravagant, I've always found. They spend all they have, which middling
kind of people just above them don't. They screw and pinch to bring
up their children, and what not; and dress shabby and go without a lot
which the working man never thinks of stinting himself in. But there's
the parson here to do that kind of thing. I'm not th