'What's that?'
'Well, you'll soon find out, young man. If you don't get one, you'll get tethered like this chap here. It's a permit to dig gold, and you have to pay thirty bob a month to the Crown. You didn't think you were going to be let dig up a fortune on Crown land for nothing, did you?'
'Oh, I understand. Well, where can we get one?'
'D'ye see that big outside tent at the camp? Well, that's the Mining Registrar's. He'll give you one apiece, if you've got the cash, and then you can dig gold by the hundredweight, if so be as you can find it.'
'All right. Can I have a word with the prisoner?'
'Oh yes; while I'm here.'
Lance went up to the manacled one and accosted him. 'What's your name, my man?'
'I'm not "my man," or your man or any one else's. Though I'm not a free man, certainly, if it comes to that. Isn't it an infernal shame that a free-born Englishman should be chained up like a dog because he hasn't thirty shillings in his pocket?'
'It doesn't seem right,' said Lance. 'The money's not much, but, of course, a man may be out of luck and not have it. The reason I asked you your name was that I was just going to the Registrar to get a couple of licenses for my mate and myself, and I could get you one at the same time.'
'Didn't I tell you I had no money?' said the man, rather savagely.