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 hauled down for ever, and the glorious Southern Cross would wave in
its stead, over a free Australia. The day on which this happened would
be a never-to-be-forgotten date in the annals of the country. For what,
he would like to know, had the British flag ever done for freedom, at
any time in the world's history? They should read in their school-books,
and there they would learn that wherever a people had risen against
their tyrants, the Union Jack had waved, not over them, but over the
British troops sent to stamp the rising out.

This was more than Mahony could stomach. Flashing up from his seat, he