After we had put up our tent, Philip went down the gully to study the art of gold digging. He watched the men at work; some were digging holes, some were dissolving clay in tubs of water by stirring it rapidly with spades, and a few were stooping at the edge of water-holes, washing off the sand mixed with the gold in milk pans.
Philip tried to enter into conversation with the diggers. He stopped near one man, and said:
"Good day, mate. How are you getting along?"
The man gazed at him steadily, and replied "Go you to hell," so Philip moved on. The next man he addressed sent him in the same direction, adding a few blessings; the third man was panning off, and there was a little gold visible in his pan. He was gray, grim, and hairy. Philip said:
"Not very lucky to-day, mate?"
The hairy man stood up, straightened his back, and looked at Philip from head to foot.
"Lucky be blowed. I wish I'd never seen this blasted place. Here have I been sinking holes and puddling for five months, and hav'n't made enough to pay my tucker and the Government license, thirty bob a month. I am a mason, and I threw up twenty-eight bob a day to come to this miserable hole. Wherever you come from, young man, I advise you to go back there again. There's twenty thousand men on Bendigo, and I don't believe nineteen thousand of 'em are earning their grub."
"I can't well go back fifteen thousand miles, even if I had money to take me back," answered Philip.
"Well, you might walk as far as Melbourne," said the hairy man, "and then you could get fourteen bob a day as a hodman; or you might take a job at stone breaking; the Government are giving 7s. 6d. a yard for road metal. Ain't you got any trade to work at?"
"No, I never learned a trade, I am only a gentleman." He felt mean enough to cry.