‘We don’t know a great deal about him,’ said Dick.

‘But when he heard that we were coming, he offered us a letter to you,’ said Caldigate.  ‘I believe him to be an honest man.’

’Honest!  Well, yes; I daresay he’s honest enough.  He never robbed me of nothing.  And shall I tell you why?  Because I know how to take care that he don’t, nor yet nobody else.’  As he said this, he looked at them as though he intended that they were included among the numbers against whom he was perfectly on his guard.

‘That’s the way to live,’ said Dick.

’That’s the way I live, my friend.  He did write before.  I remember saying to myself what a pair of simpletons you must be if you was thinking of going to Ahalala.’

‘We do think of going there,’ said Caldigate.

’The road’s open to you.  Nobody won’t prevent you.  You can get beef and mutton there, and damper, and tea no doubt, and what they call brandy, as long as you’ve got the money to pay for it.  One won’t say anything about what price they’ll charge you.  Have you got any money?’ Then Caldigate made a lengthened speech, in which he explained so much of their circumstances as seemed necessary.  He did not name the exact sum which had been left at the bank in Melbourne, but he did make Mr. Crinkett understand that they were not paupers.  They were anxious to do something in the way of mining, and particularly anxious to make money.  But they did not quite know how to begin.  Could he give them a hint?  They meant to work with their own hands, but perhaps it might be well for them at first to hire the services of some one to set them a-going.

Crinkett listened very patiently, still maintaining his position on his own side of the gate.  Then he spoke words of such wisdom as was in him.  ’Ahalala is just the place to ease you of a little money.  Mind I tell you.  Gold! of course there’s been gold to be got there.  But what’s been the cost of it?  What’s been the return?  If sixteen hundred men, among ‘em, can sell fifteen hundred pounds’ worth of gold a week, how is each man to have twenty shillings on Saturday night?  That’s about what it is at Ahalala.  Of course there’s gold.  And where there’s gold chucked about in that way, just on the surface, one gets it and ten don’t.  Who is to say you mayn’t be the one.  As to hiring a man to show you the way,—­you can hire a dozen.  As long as you’ll pay ’em ten shillings a-day to loaf about, you may have men enough.  But whether they’ll show you the way to anything except the liquor store, that’s another thing.  Now shall I tell you what you two gents had better do?’ Dick declared that the two gents would be very much obliged to him if he would take that trouble.  ’Of course you’ve heard of the “Old Stick-in-the-Mud"?’ Dick told him that they had heard of that very successful mining enterprise since their arrival at Nobble.  ’You ask on the veranda at Melbourne, or at Ballarat, or at Sydney.  If they don’t tell you about it, my name’s not Crinkett.  You put your money, what you’ve got, into ten-shilling shares.  I’ll accommodate you, as you’re friends of Jones, with any reasonable number.  We’re getting two ounces to the ton.  The books’ll show you that.’