front of the tent, her hair hanging down her
back, cursing and reviling. Respectable women as well did an
afternoon's shopping there. In no haste to be gone, they sat about on
empty boxes or upturned barrels exchanging confidences, while weary
children plucked at their skirts. A party of youngsters entered, the
tallest of whom could just see over the counter, and called for
shandygaffs. The assistant was for chasing them off, with hard words.
But the storekeeper put, instead, a stick of barley-sugar into each
dirty, outstretched hand, and the imps retired well content. On their
heels came a digger and his lady-love to choose a wedding-outfit; and
all the gaudy finery the store held was displayed before them. A red
velvet dress flounced with satin, a pink gauze bonnet, white satin
shoes and white silk stockings met their fancy. The dewy-lipped,
smutty-lashed Irish girl blushed and dimpled, in consulting with the
shopman upon the stays in which to lace her ample figure; the digger,
whose very pores oozed gold, planked down handfuls of dust and nuggets,
and brushed aside a neat Paisley shawl for one of yellow satin, the
fellow to which he swore to having seen on the back of the Governor's
lady herself. He showered brandy-snaps on the children, and bought a
polka-jacket for a shabby old woman. Then, producing a bottle of
champagne from a sack he bore, he called on those present to give him,
after: "'Er most Gracious little Majesty, God bless 'er!" the: "'Oly
estate of materimony!" The empty bottle smashed for luck, the couple
departed arm-in-arm, carrying their purchases in the sack; and the rest
of the company trooped to the door with them, to wish them joy.

Within the narrow confines of the tent, where red-herrings trailed over
moleskin-shorts, and East India pickles and Hessian boots lay on the
top of sugar and mess-pork; where cheeses rubbed shoulders with tallow
candles, blue and red serge shirts, and captain's biscuits; where
onions, and guernseys, and sardines, fine combs, cigars and
bear's-grease, Windsor soap, tinned coffee and hair oil, revolvers,
shovels and Oxford shoes, lay in one grand miscellany: within the
crowded store, as the afternoon wore on, the air grew rank and
oppressive. Precisely at six o'clock the bar was let down across the
door, and the storekeeper withdrew to his living-room at the back of
the tent. Here he changed his coat and meticulously washed his hands,
to which clung a subtle blend of al