hroats rang changes on the
question. Order restored, it was evident that the speech was over.
Thrown violently out of his concept, the auctioneer struck and struck
at his palm--in vain; nothing would come. So, making the best of a bad
job, he irately sat down in favour of his successor on the programme.

This speaker did not fare much better. The assemblage, roused now,
jolly and merciless, was not disposed to give quarter; and his
obtuseness in dawdling over such high-flown notions as that population,
not property, formed the basis of representative government, reaped him
a harvest of boos and groans. This was not what the diggers had come
out to hear. And they were as direct as children in their demand for
the gist of the matter.

"A reg-lar ol' shicer!" was the unanimous opinion, expressed without
scruple. While from the back of the hall came the curt request to him
to shut his "tater-trap."

Next on the list was a German, a ruddy-faced man with mutton-chop
whiskers and prominent, watery eyes. He could not manage the letter
"r." In the body of a word where it was negligible, he rolled it out as
though it stood three deep. Did he tackle it as an initial, on the
other hand, his tongue seemed to cleave to his palate, and to yield
only an "l." This quaint defect caused some merriment at the start, but
was soon eclipsed by a more striking oddity. The speaker had the habit
of, as it were, creaking with his nose. After each few sentences he
paused, to give himself time to produce something between a creak and a
snore--an abortive attempt to get at a mucus that was plainly out of
reach.

The diggers were beside themselves with mirth.

"'E's forgot 'is 'ankey!"

"'Ere, boys, look slippy!--a 'ankey for ol' sausage!"

But the German was not sensitive to ridicule. He had something to say,
and he was there to say it. Fixing his fish-like eyes on a spot high up
the tent wall, he kept them pinned to it, while he mouthed out
blood-and-thunder invectives. He was, it seemed, a red-hot
revolutionist; a fierce denouncer of British rule. He declared the
British monarchy to be an effete institution; the fetish of British
freedom to have been "exbloded" long ago. What they needed, in this
grand young country of theirs, was a "republic"; they must rid
themselves of those shackles that had been forged in the days when men
were slaves. It was his sound conviction that before many weeks had
passed, the Union Jack would have been haule