with a bevy of noisy young men who had been given to games and smoking,
and to a good deal of drink. Caldigate had said not a word, even when
on one occasion Dick had stumbled down into the cabin very much the
worse for what he had taken. How could he find fault with Dick's folly
when he would not allow Dick to say a word to him as to his own? But on
this last day at sea it became necessary that they should understand
each other.

'What do you mean to do when you land?' Caldigate asked.

All that had been settled between them very exactly long since. At a
town called Nobble, about three hundred miles west of Sydney, there
lived a man, supposed to be knowing in gold, named Crinkett, with whom
they had corresponded, and to whom they intended, in the first instance,
to apply. And about twenty miles beyond Nobble were the new and now much
reputed Ahalala diggings, at which they purposed to make their first
debut. It had been decided that they would go direct from Melbourne to
Nobble,--not round by Sydney so as to see more of the world, and thus
spend more money,--but by the direct route, taking the railway to Albury
and the coaches, which they were informed were running between Albury
and Nobble. And it had also been determined that they would spend but
two nights in Melbourne,--'just to get their things washed,'--so keen
had they been in their determination to begin their work. But on all
these matters there had been no discussion now for a month, nor even an
allusion to them.

'What do you mean to do when we land?' Caldigate asked on that last day.

'I thought all that was settled. But I suppose you are going to change
everything?'