s. share'll give you about 6d.
a month. That's about 60 per cent, I guess. You can have your money
monthly. What comes out of that there mine in a March, you can have in
a April, and so on. There ain't nothing like it anywhere else,--not as I
knows on. And instead of working your hearts out, you can be just
amusing yourselves about the country. Don't go to Ahalala;--unless it is
for dropping your money. If that's what you want, I won't say but
Ahalala is as good a place as you'll find in the colony.' Then he
brought a bottle of whisky out of a cupboard, and treated them to a
glass of grog apiece. Beyond that his hospitality did not go.

Dick looked as though he liked the idea of having a venture in the 'Old
Stick-in-the-Mud.' Caldigate, without actually disbelieving all that had
been said to him, did not relish the proposal. It was not the kind of
thing which they had intended. After they had learned their trade as
miners it might be very well for them to have shares in some established
concern;--but in that case he would wish to be one of the managers
himself, and not to trust everything to any Crinkett, however honest.
That suggestion of travelling about and amusing themselves, did not
commend itself to him. New South Wales might, he thought, be a good
country for work, but did not seem to offer much amusement beyond sheer
idleness, and brandy-and-water.

'I rather think we should like to do a little in the rough first,' he
said.

'A very little'll go a long way with you, I'm thinking.'

'I don't see that at all,' said Dick, stoutly.

'You go down there and take one of them picks in your hand for a
week,--eight hours at a time, with five minutes' spell allowed for a
smoke, and see how you'll feel at the end of the week.'

'We'll try it on, if you'll give us 10s. a-day for the week,' said
Caldigate, rubbing his hands together.

'I wouldn't give you half-a-crown for the whole time between you, and
you wouldn't earn it. Ten shillings a day! I suppose you think a man has
only just to say the word and become a miner out of hand. You've a deal
to learn before you'll be worth half the money. I never knew chaps like
you come to any good at working. If you've got a little money, you know,
I've shown you what you can do with it. But perhaps you haven't.'

The conversation was ended by a declaration on the part of Caldigate
that they would take a week to think over Mr. Crinkett's kind
proposition, and that they might as