For a hundred pounds in cash, we were put in complete possession of not only the store, but all it contained, including a very good stove, of a Massachusetts man’s make, and sent to Australia on speculation—­three or four pots and kettles—­a number of cracked dishes, very dirty—­weights and scales, both large and small, and which, we afterwards found, were so arranged that the buyer got about two-thirds of what he paid for, while the weights for purchasing gold dust were a little too heavy to accord with strict honesty—­barrels containing remnants of articles of not much use to any one, besides other things which we did not make any account of.

We made a bargain that we should take possession of the premises on the next day, and after taking a bill of sale of the articles purchased, with the bold signature of Mr. Brown as a witness of the transaction, we returned to our tent, and thought that our labors for the day were over.  In this, we were unhappily disappointed, for, to our extreme amusement, a dozen or twenty persons were seated in the vicinity of our temporary home, and a more wretched, woe-begone set I never saw in my life.

“Hullo! what is the meaning of this?” I asked in surprise, as I surveyed the crowd.

“We’ve come to be doctored by you,” said an Irishman, exposing his hand, wrapped in a dirty bandage.

“But there is some mistake here.  You have applied to the wrong man,” I replied.

“No mistake, yer honor,” answered a sturdy, good-looking, bronzed fellow, with a military air and a military salute; “we’ve heard of yer honors, and we know that ye can do us good without wringing the last shilling from us, like those blood-sucking sawbones.”

“They take us for physicians,” muttered Fred, in astonishment.

“You are mistaken,” replied Mr. Brown; “they are poor devils, who cannot afford to employ a surgeon, so come to you to get their wounds dressed.  If you have any knowledge of cuts and bruises, assist them, and you will be no loser by it.”

The advice was good, but the idea of our prescribing and dressing all the wounds of the poor of Ballarat was something that we had not bargained for.

“You see, your honor, I got an ugly cut on my hand with a shovel, a few days since, and, somehow, I don’t think that it’s doing very well,” the military man said, exposing his right hand, which looked in a horrible condition.

“You should ask the advice of a physician,” I said, after a brief inspection of the poor fellow’s injury; “inflammation has set in, and you will have trouble, unless the cut is attended to.”

“I know that, yer honor; but it’s little the doctors around here care for me, unless I visit ’em with a gold piece in my hand.  I’ve paid six pound already, and I think I’m getting worse very fast.”

I could not help pitying the poor fellow, he was such a sample of manly strength, and bore himself like a true soldier.  He had been discharged from the British army, at the expiration of his time, and was in hopes of making money enough to go home and live in peace with his parents.