“Divil a bit of whiskey have I touched for two days; but I’ll have a drop now for the purpose of drinking long lives to your honors.  It’s me head that is affected, and well it may be.  O, it’s little did I think that I should come to this.  Glory to God—­it’s plazed the old woman and the childers will be.”

He made a dive at the whiskey cask, and drank a pretty stiff nipper before he could compose himself.  We did not interfere, because we did not know but that the fellow might have escaped from the mine while it was caving in,—­accidents of that kind happening quite frequently,—­and that fright had turned his brain.

“Now, Mike, be kind enough to tell us what has happened,” I said, thinking that he had mystified us long enough.

“O, such news,” he exclaimed, springing upon his feet, and executing a wild sort of shuffle that would have delighted the hearts of the ’finest pisantry’ in the world, had they been present, to have seen his antics.

“Well, what is the news?” I demanded, while Fred, too indolent to speak, lay upon the counter, and laughed a sleepy sort of laugh, without changing his position.

“Murderation, who would have thought of it?  It’s a rich man ye will be, Mike, ye lucky divil.  What will the old folks say, when they bear of it?  Glory to St. Patrick, but won’t the boys stare, and call me Mr. Mike!”

I began to have an inkling of the man’s meaning.  I sprang from my seat, caught Mike by his collar, and shook him for a few seconds, until I thought that his senses were returned before I put a question.

“Mike, you devil,” I exclaimed, “you have found a nugget.”

“Whoop!” he yelled, springing up, and striking his feet together with excess of joy, “I found the granddaddy of lumps.”

“What’s that?” cried Fred, starting from his recumbent position, and beginning to take an interest in the conversation.

“It’s a lump as big as my head I’ve found,” roared Mike, making another dive for the whiskey barrel, but we choked him off, and made him stick to his text.

“Do you mean that you have found a nugget of gold as large as your head?” demanded Fred, eagerly.

“To the divil wid yer nuggets—­what do I know about nuggets?  It’s a lump of pure goold I’ve found; as big a lump as my head, and ten times as heavy.”

We could hardly believe the news Mike imparted to us was true; but his eagerness convinced us that he had stumbled upon something, although we feared it was a lump of quartz, with a few streaks of gold running through it, such as was often found in Ballarat, and which, for the want of a good quartz-crushing machine, was thrown aside as being worthless.

“Come and see for yourselves,” yelled Mike, almost out of patience at our obstinacy in not placing implicit reliance upon his word in regard to the matter.

“Will ye come and look at the beautiful piece of goold wid me? and thin perhaps ye’ll belave without further words.  But remember—­one quarter is mine.”