steam. At heart, the diggers were as sound as good
pippins.

A graver consideration was Purdy's growing fellowship with the rebel
faction. The boy was too young and still too much of a fly-by-night to
have a black mark set against his name. It would be the more absurd,
considering that his sincerity in espousing the diggers' cause was far
from proved. He was of a nature to ride tantivy into anything that
promised excitement or adventure. With, it must regretfully be
admitted, an increasing relish for the limelight, for theatrical
effect--see the cunning with which he had made capital out of a
bandaged ankle and dirty dress! At this rate, and with his engaging
ways, he would soon stand for a little god to the rough, artless crowd.
No, he must leave the diggings--and Mahony rolled various schemes in
his mind. He had it! In the course of the next week or two business
would make a journey to Melbourne imperative. Well, he would damn the
extra expense and take the boy along with him! Purdy was at a loose
end, and would no doubt rise like a fish to a fly at the chance of
getting to town free of cost. After all, why be hard on him? He was not
much over twenty, and, at that age, it was natural enough--especially
in a place like this--for a lad to flit like a butterfly from every cup
that took his restless fancy.

Restless? ... h'm! It was the word Purdy had flung back at him, earlier
in the evening. At the time, he had rebutted the charge, with a glance
at fifteen months spent behind the counter of a store. But there was a
modicum of truth in it, none the less. The life one led out here was
not calculated to tone down any innate restlessness of temperament: on
the contrary, it directly hindered one from becoming fixed and settled.
It was on a par with the houses you lived in--these flimsy tents and
draught-riddled cabins you put up with, "for the time being"--was just
as much of a makeshift affair as they. Its keynote was change. Fortunes
were made, and lost, and made again, before you could say Jack
Robinson; whole townships shot up over-night, to be deserted the moment
the soil ceased to yield; the people you knew were here to-day, and
gone--sold up, burnt out, or dead and buried--to-morrow. And so,
whether you would or not, your whole outlook became attuned to the
general unrest; you lived in a constant anticipation of what was coming
next. Well, he could own to the weakness with more justification than
most. If trade cont