trust him."

"I'm sure I'm very much pleased with your favorable opinion, and I hope
I shall deserve it. I've already done some things that can't he beat,
although I'm not in the possession of much money. Gentlemen, I must ask
you to drink at my expense, if I can manage to negotiate with Dan for
credit."

Jackson started for a short conference with the barkeeper, and Steel
Spring whispered to the inspector to "draw him out, and hear him talk."

Dan apparently required some persuasion to give credit, but at length
the representations of Jackson prevailed, and he returned to us radiant.

"The d----d old '_fence_,'" he muttered, "he is afraid of giving credit
as a churchman, and nearly as mean. The next time I'm in Ballarat, I
hope that I shall have money enough to pay for select lodgings, and then
he and his 'Cricket' may go to the devil. What are you going to take?"

We ordered our liquor, and after it was brought made a show of tasting
it, but we knew better than to drink spirit at the Cricket.

"By the way," Mr. Brown said, "you was saying something about your not
being green, and that you had tried your hand at one or two things. Now,
if you have no objections, we should like to know how you've been
employed, so that we can judge of your mettle."

The young fellow paused; and I could see that shame was not entirely
banished from his heart, for he colored, and then endeavored to crush
his feelings with a drink of poisonous spirit.

"What need I care," he exclaimed, at length, a "short life and a merry
one for me. A fellow may as well be dead as destitute of money, and when
it can't be got by hard work, I'm in favor of taking it wherever I can
get it."

"Them's the sentiments," cried the inspector, and then muttered in an
undertone, "that have hanged better men than you."

"You see, gentlemen," Jackson continued, the liquor opening his heart,
and making him loquacious, "that I began life in Liverpool, in the old
country. I was apprenticed to a grocer, but I looked upon weighing
coffee and tea as not the kind of employment for a man; so one day I
stepped out of the store on board of a ship that was just ready to sail
for Melbourne, and started to seek my fortune in this part of the
world."

"Didn't you have any capital to begin with?" interrogated the inspector,
with a wink of encouragement.

"Well, yes," hesitated the young fellow; "I forgot to say that I had
five hundred sovereigns in my pocket at the tim