We made a bargain that we should take possession of the premises on the next day, and after taking a bill of sale of the articles purchased, with the bold signature of Mr. Brown as a witness of the transaction, we returned to our tent, and thought that our labors for the day were over. In this, we were unhappily disappointed, for, to our extreme amusement, a dozen or twenty persons were seated in the vicinity of our temporary home, and a more wretched, woe-begone set I never saw in my life.
"Hullo! what is the meaning of this?" I asked in surprise, as I surveyed the crowd.
"We've come to be doctored by you," said an Irishman, exposing his hand, wrapped in a dirty bandage.
"But there is some mistake here. You have applied to the wrong man," I replied.
"No mistake, yer honor," answered a sturdy, good-looking, bronzed fellow, with a military air and a military salute; "we've heard of yer honors, and we know that ye can do us good without wringing the last shilling from us, like those blood-sucking sawbones."
"They take us for physicians," muttered Fred, in astonishment.
"You are mistaken," replied Mr. Brown; "they are poor devils, who cannot afford to employ a surgeon, so come to you to get their wounds dressed. If you have any knowledge of cuts and bruises, assist them, and you will be no loser by it."
The advice was good, but the idea of our prescribing and dressing all the wounds of the poor of Ballarat was something that we had not bargained for.
"You see, your honor, I got an ugly cut on my hand with a shovel, a few days since, and, somehow, I don't think that it's doing very well," the military man said, exposing his right hand, which looked in a horrible condition.
"You should ask the advice of a physician," I said, after a brief inspection of the poor fellow's injury; "inflammation has set in, and you will have trouble, unless the cut is attended to."