miserable creature was always compelled to go back to his Bohemian
life without accomplishing his object of getting money from the wife
he had deserted.

People talked, of course, but Madame did not mind. She had tried
married life, and had been disappointed; her old ideas of belief in
human nature had passed away; in short, the girl who had been the
belle of Melbourne as Miss Curtis and Mrs Villiers had disappeared,
and the stern, clever, cynical woman who managed the Pactolus claim
was a new being called 'Madame Midas'.




CHAPTER II

SLIVERS


Everyone has heard of the oldest inhabitant--that wonderful piece of
antiquity, with white hair, garrulous tongue, and cast-iron memory,-
-who was born with the present century--very often before it--and
remembers George III, the Battle of Waterloo, and the invention of
the steam-engine. But in Australia, the oldest inhabitant is
localized, and rechristened an early settler. He remembers Melbourne
before Melbourne was; he distinctly recollects sailing up the Yarra
Yarra with Batman, and talks wildly about the then crystalline
purity of its waters--an assertion which we of to-day feel is open
to considerable doubt. His wealth is unbounded, his memory
marvellous, and his acquaintances of a somewhat mixed character,