On the day of their arrival at the settlement, Ned and Tom were almost beggars; a dollar or two being all the cash they possessed, besides the gold-dust swallowed by the latter, which being, as Tom remarked, sunk money, was not available for present purposes.
One week later, they were, as Abel Jefferson expressed it, “driving a roaring trade in pictur’s,” and in the receipt of fifty dollars, or 10 pounds a day! Goods and provisions of all kinds had been suddenly thrown into the settlement by speculators, so that living became comparatively cheap; several new and profitable diggings had been discovered, in consequence of which gold became plentiful; and the result of all was that Edward Sinton, esquire, portrait and landscape painter, had more orders than he could accept, at almost any price he chose to name. Men who every Saturday came into the settlement to throw away their hard-earned gains in the gambling-houses, or to purchase provisions for the campaign of the following week, were delighted to have an opportunity of procuring their portraits, and were willing to pay any sum for them, so that, had our hero been so disposed, he could have fleeced the miners to a considerable extent. But Ned was not so disposed, either by nature or necessity. He fixed what he considered fair remunerative prices for his work, according to the tariff of the diggings, and so arranged it that he made as much per day as he would have realised had he been the fortunate possessor of one of the best “claims” in the neighbourhood.
Tom Collins, meanwhile, went out prospecting, and speedily discovered a spot of ground which, when wrought with the pan, turned him in twenty dollars a day. So that, in the course of a fortnight, our adventurers found themselves comparatively rich men. This was satisfactory, and Ned admitted as much one morning to Tom, as he sat on a three-legged stool in his studio—i.e. a dilapidated log-hut—preparing for a sitter, while the latter was busily engaged in concluding his morning repast of damper, pork, and beans.
“There’s no doubt about it, Tom,” said he, pegging a sheet of drawing-paper to a flat board, “we are rapidly making our fortunes, my boy; but d’you know, I’m determined to postpone that desirable event, and take to rambling again.”
“There you go,” said Tom, somewhat testily, as he lit a cigar, and lay down on his bed to enjoy it; “you are never content; I knew it wouldn’t last; you’re a rolling stone, and will end in being a beggar. Do you really mean to say that you intend to give up a lucrative profession and become a vagrant?—for such you will be, if you take to wandering about the country without any object in view.”
“Indeed, I do,” answered Ned. “How often am I to tell you that I don’t and won’t consider the making of money the chief good of this world? Doubtless, it is an uncommonly necessary thing, especially to those who have families to support; but I am firmly convinced that this life was meant to be enjoyed, and I mean to enjoy it accordingly.”
“I agree with you, Ned, heartily; but if every one enjoyed life as you propose to do, and took to rambling over the face of the earth, there would be no work done, and nothing could be had for love or money—except what grew spontaneously; and that would be a joyful state of things, wouldn’t it?”
Tom Collins, indulging the belief that he had taken up an unassailable position, propelled from his lips a long thin cloud of smoke, and smiled through it at his friend.
“Your style of reasoning is rather wild, to say the least of it,” answered Ned, as he rubbed down his colours on the bottom of a broken plate. “In the first place, you assume that I propose to spend all my life in rambling; and, in the second place, you found your argument on the absurd supposition that everybody else must find their sole enjoyment in the same occupation.”
“How I wish,” sighed Tom Collins, smoking languidly, “that there was no such thing as reasoning. You would be a much more agreeable fellow, Ned, if you didn’t argue.”