relished the honey, and had an answer pat for everybody especially the
women. His companion on the other hand was greeted with a glibness that
had something perfunctory in it, and no touch of familiarity.

The big canvas tent on Bakery Hill, where the meeting was to be held,
was already lighted; and at the tinkle of a bell the diggers, who till
then had stood cracking and hobnobbing outside, began to push for the
entrance. The bulk of them belonged to the race that is quickest to
resent injustice--were Irish. After them in number came the Germans,
swaggering and voluble; and the inflammable French, English, Scotch and
Americans formed a smaller and cooler, but very dogged group.

At the end of the tent a rough platform had been erected, on which stood
a row of cane seats. In the body of the hall, the benches were formed of
boards, laid from one upturned keg or tub to another. The chair was
taken by a local auctioneer, a cadaverous-looking man, with never a
twinkle in his eye, who, in a lengthy discourse and with the single
monotonous gesture of beating the palm of one hand with the back of the
other, strove to bring home to his audience the degradation of their
present political status. The diggers chewed and spat, and listened to
his periods with sang-froid: the shame of their state did not greatly
move them. They followed, too, with composure, the rehearsal of their
general grievances. As they were aware, said the speaker, the
Legislative Council of Victoria was made up largely of Crown nominees;
in the election of members the gold-seeking population had no voice
whatsoever. This was a scandalous thing; for the digging constituent
outnumbered all the rest of the population put together, thus forming
what he would call the backbone and mainstay of the colony. The labour
of THEIR hands had raised the colony to its present pitch of prosperity.
And yet these same bold and hardy pioneers were held incapable of