“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-creatures I was ever in. I never pass a day with out 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.”