t in this unpromising spot was quite
entitled to be called a mansion. It was of red brick, three storeys
high, with white stone facings to all the windows and all the corners,
which glittered uncomfortably in the hot sun. There was a sweep up to
it, the road having been made from the debris of the stone out of which
the gold had been crushed; but though there was the sweep up to the door
carefully made for the length of a few dozen yards, there was nothing
that could be called a road outside, though there were tracks here and
there through the hillocks, along which the waggons employed about the
place struggled through the mud. The house itself was built with a large
hall in the middle, and three large windows on each side. On the floor
there were four large rooms, with kitchens opening out behind, and above
there were, of course, chambers in proportion and in the little garden
there was a pond and a big bath-house, and there were coach-houses and
stables;--so that it was quite a mansion. It was called Polyeuka Hall,
because while it was being built Mr. Crinkett was drawing large gains
from the Polyeuka mine, about three miles distant on the other side of
Nobble. For the building of his mansion on this special site, no one
could imagine any other reason than that love which a brave man has of
overcoming difficulties. To endeavour to create a paradise in such a
Pandemonium required all the energies of a Crinkett. Whether or not he
had been successful depended of course on his own idiosyncrasies. He
had a wife who, it is to be hoped, liked her residence. They had no
children, and he spent the greater part of his time away in other mining
districts in which he had ventures. When thus absent, he would live as
Jack Brien and his friends were living at Mrs. Henniker's, and was
supposed to enjoy the ease of his inn more thoroughly than he did the
constraint of his grand establishment.

At the present moment he was at home, and was standing at the gate of
his domain all alone, with a pipe in his mouth,--perhaps listening, as
the man had said, to the noise of his own crushing-machine. He was
dressed in black, with a chimney-pot on his head,--and certainly did not
look like a miner, though he looked as little like a gentleman. Our
friends were in what they conceived to be proper miners' costume, but
Mr. Crinkett knew at a glance that there was something uncommon about
them. As they approached he did not attempt to open the gate, b