nd inexplicable thing that business showed no sign of
improving. Affairs on Ballarat had, for months past, run their usual
prosperous course. The western township grew from day to day, and was
straggling right out to the banks of the great swamp. On the Flat, the
deep sinking that was at present the rule--some parties actually
touched a depth of three hundred feet before bottoming--had brought a
fresh host of fortune-hunters to the spot, and the results obtained bid
fair to rival those of the first golden year. The diggers' grievances
and their conflict with the government were now a turned page. At a
state trial all prisoners had been acquitted, and a general amnesty
declared for those rebels who were still at large. Unpopular ministers
had resigned or died; a new constitution for the colony awaited the
Royal assent; and pending this, two of the rebel-leaders, now prominent
townsmen, were chosen to sit in the Legislative Council. The future
could not have looked rosier. For others, that was. For him, Mahony, it
held more than one element of uncertainty.

At no time had he come near making a fortune out of storekeeping. For
one thing, he had been too squeamish. From the outset he had declined
to soil his hands with surreptitious grog-selling; nor would he be a
party to that evasion of the law which consisted in overcharging on
other goods, and throwing in drinks free. Again, he would rather have
been hamstrung than stoop to the tricks in vogue with regard to the
weighing of gold-dust: the greased scales, the wet sponge, false beams,
and so on. Accordingly, he had a clearer conscience than the majority
and a lighter till. But even at the legitimate ABC of business he had
proved a duffer. He had never, for instance, learned to be a really
skilled hand at stocking a shop. Was an out-of-the-way article called
for, ten to one he had run short of it; and the born shopman's knack of
palming off or persuading to a makeshift was not his. Such goods as he
had, he did not press on people; his attitude was always that of "take
it or leave it"; and he sometimes surprised a ridiculous feeling of
satisfaction when he chased a drunken and insolent customer off the
premises, or secured an hour's leisure unbroken by the jangle of the
store-bell.

Still, in spite of everything he had, till recently, done well enough.
Money was loose, and the diggers, if given long credit when down on
their luck, were in the main to be relied on to pay up