was easy to see that each enterprising proprietor had been his own
architect. But they were all alike in having enormous advertisement-boards,
some high, some broad, some sloping, on which were declared the merits of
the tradesmen who administered within to the wants of mining humanity. And
they had generally assumed most singular names for themselves: 'The Old
Stick-in-the-Mud Soft Goods Store,' 'The Polyeuka Stout Depot,' 'Number
Nine Flour Mills,' and so on,--all of which were very unintelligible to
our friends till they learned that these were the names belonging to
certain gold-mining claims which had been opened in the neighbourhood
of Nobble. The street itself was almost more perilous to vehicles than
the slush of the forest-tracks, so deep were the holes and so uncertain
the surface. When Caldigate informed the driver that they wanted to be
taken as far as Henniker's hotel, the man said that he had given up
going so far as that for the last two months, the journey being too
perilous. So they shouldered their portmanteaus and struggled forth
down the street. Here and there a short bit of wooden causeway, perhaps
for the length of three houses, would assist them; and then, again, they
would have to descend into the roadway and plunge along through the mud.

'It is not quite as nice walking as the old Quad at Trinity,' said
Caldigate.

'It is the beastliest hole I ever put my foot in since I was born,' said
Dick, who had just stumbled and nearly came to the ground with his
burden. 'They told us that Nobble was a fine town.'

Henniker's hotel was a long, low wooden shanty, divided into various
very small partitions by thin planks, in most of which two or more
dirty-looking beds had been packed very closely. But between these
little compartments there was a long chamber containing a long and very