ad their origin
in the influence of potent libations acting on natures by no means
warped by conventional thought, but which, under that influence, were
stripped of the scanty robes they wore, and stood before the world naked
in all the simplicity and crudity of first principles.

There was a guest already staying at the Rest when the crowd of diggers
arrived--a guest whose suave manner and smooth tongue had been used to
ingratiate himself with the proprietor of the Rest, but which had only
tended to induce a lurking suspicion against him. Men used to the blunt
methods of unadulterated human nature are prone to be sceptical of the
motives which underlie what they tersely define as "chin-oil."

He, a slim, long-limbed man, with a sharp-featured face and shifty eyes,
who said his name was Tap, lingered round the bar as the diggers trooped
in, and smiled and cringed as he heard the order given to "Fill 'em up,
fill 'em all up." When his glass was charged, he sidled up to a group,
and asked, in his smooth voice, whether any one had found a nugget.

The man nearest, a burly, sunburned specimen, with a voice like a bull's
and a vocabulary limited in everything save profanity, turned and looked
at him.

"Nuggets?" he said, with a large embellishment of adjective, as he
produced a canvas bag from inside his shirt and opened the mouth of it,
revealing a store of gold. "We've all got 'em--enough to buy"--and he
indicated Birralong.

"Oh, I am glad," the smooth-tongued Tap rejoined. "You must have worked
hard; and in the hot weather too."

The man swallowed the contents of his glass, and set it down with a bang
on the table as he fixed his eyes on Tap's face, and from the succeeding
observations Tap realized that his sympathy and would-be friendly
overture had been as gall in the mouth of his companion, who, unused to
anything save the rugged bluntness of a wild, free life, took the
mealy-mouthed sentence as a slight on his intelligence. The storm was
averted by Tap inviting him to "have another," and, with delicate
humility, taking the burly man's glass up to the bar in order to have it
replenished--and also charged against the score of the burly man. Then
he discreetly moved away, and mingled with other groups, always reaching
one as the order was being given, and moving on to another before the
time came for the "shout" to get round to his turn, until he had learned
conclusively that every one of the men had a fair-sized