"Mike, you devil," I exclaimed, "you have found a nugget."
"Whoop!" he yelled, springing up, and striking his feet together with excess of joy, "I found the granddaddy of lumps."
"What's that?" cried Fred, starting from his recumbent position, and beginning to take an interest in the conversation.
"It's a lump as big as my head I've found," roared Mike, making another dive for the whiskey barrel, but we choked him off, and made him stick to his text.
"Do you mean that you have found a nugget of gold as large as your head?" demanded Fred, eagerly.
"To the divil wid yer nuggets—what do I know about nuggets? It's a lump of pure goold I've found; as big a lump as my head, and ten times as heavy."
We could hardly believe the news Mike imparted to us was true; but his eagerness convinced us that he had stumbled upon something, although we feared it was a lump of quartz, with a few streaks of gold running through it, such as was often found in Ballarat, and which, for the want of a good quartz-crushing machine, was thrown aside as being worthless.
"Come and see for yourselves," yelled Mike, almost out of patience at our obstinacy in not placing implicit reliance upon his word in regard to the matter.
"Will ye come and look at the beautiful piece of goold wid me? and thin perhaps ye'll belave without further words. But remember—one quarter is mine."