ys hate a man who won't talk to me and tell me things, and the
doctor was so silent and unsociable, that, by way of revenge, I left
him to the care and curses of old "Specs."

After four days he departed, and he appeared again at Ballarat on
January 15th, giving evidence at an inquest on one Hardy, killed by a
gunshot wound. In the meantime a total change had taken place among
the occupants of the Government camp. Commissioner Rede had retired,
Dr. Williams, the coroner, and the district surgeons had received
notice to quit in twenty-four hours, and they left behind them
twenty-four patients in and around the camp hospital.

Dr. Carr left the colony, and the next report about him was from
Manchester, where he made a wild and incoherent speech to the crowd
at the Exchange. His last public appearance was in a police-court on
a charge of lunacy. He was taken away by his friends, and what
became of him afterwards is not recorded.

Doctors, when there is a dearth of patients, sometimes take to war,
and thus succeed in creating a "practice." Occasionally they meet
with disaster, of which we can easily call to mind instances, both
ancient and modern.

III.

Diggers do not often turn their eyes heavenwards; their treasure does
not lie in that direction. But one night I saw Bez star-gazing.

"Do you know the names of any of the stars in this part of the roof?"
I asked.

"I can't make out many of the Manchester stars," he replied. "I knew
a few when I was a boy, but there was a good deal of fog and smoke,
and latterly I have not looked up that way much; but I can spot a few
of them yet, I think."

Bez was a rather prosy poet, and his eye was not in a fine frenzy rolling.

"Let me see," he said; "that's the north; Charles' Wain and the North
Pole ought to be there, but they have gone down somewhere. There are
the Seven Stars--I never could make 'em seven; if there ever were
that number one of 'em has dropped out. And there's Orion; he has
somehow slipped up to the north, and is standing on his head, heels
uppermost. There are the two stars in his heels, two on his
shoulders, three in his belt, and three in his sword. There is the
Southern Cross; we could never see that in our part of England, nor
those two silvery clouds, nor the two black holes. They look
curious, don't they? I suppose the two clouds are the Gates of
Heaven, and the two black spots the Gates of Hell, the doors of
eternity. Which way sh