r a day or two
before leaving for the fields. No doubt it would be an easy matter to get
accommodation at some hotel or lodging-house. After that he would move
with the throng, and his future actions would depend upon such knowledge
as he might be able to gather from the experienced people with whom he
came in contact. He presently had ample proof that the driving of
Macdougal of Boobyalla was nothing extraordinary here. Three horsemen
passed him at a racing speed, and with much shouting and cracking of
whips, and a wild, bewhiskered Bushman, driving two horses in a light,
giglike vehicle, charged through the dust at a pace implying some
business of life or death; but a little further on Jim came upon the
steaming pair tethered to a post outside a rough structure labelled the
'Miner's Rest,' and at the bar stood the driver toying lazily with a
nobbler of brandy. He passed groups of men lounging against the building
and sitting in the street, all smoking, none showing particular concern
about anything. Their lethargy surprised him. He had expected to find the
town mad with excitement, to behold here the gold fever blazing without
restraint; but wherever there was a post to lean against a man was
leaning against it, exactly as if there were nothing doing, and the world
had not just run demented over the richness of their Victorian fields. It
remained for him to learn that this very excitement provoked a
corresponding lassitude, and that when the Australian diggers were not
indulging in the extreme of frenzied exertion or boisterous recreation
their inertia surpassed that of their own koala, the native sloth.

Ere he reached the busier part of the town, Jim made the disconcerting
discovery that he was a marked man, an object of public contumely. He had
heard calls of derision at various points along the road, and was
convinced now that for some reason or another he was exciting the
laughter and badinage of the men. This was a painful shock to Done's
happiness. The situation recalled Chisley, and something of the old
Ishmael stirred within him. He set his teeth and hurried on.
'Pea-souper!' was the epithet most in favour amongst his tormentors. Why
'Pea-souper!' Jim could not understand. He could see no aptness in its
application to him, and yet it was certainly a term of mockery.
'Pea-souper!' The taunt had an ignominious flavour. It hurt because it
recalled so much of what he had travelled halfway round the world to
escap