"Not had your suppers?" thundered Bullocky; a lurch took him to the tap-room door, where he gave the order in a roar. "Now you drink up," he went on, with ferocious hospitality, as another lurch brought him back. "It cost five pounds a bottle, and if it ain't good enough for scum like you, I'll stretch the two of ye stiff till your grub's ready." And the genial brute bellowed with laughter until the veranda shook, and flinging off a wideawake garnished with an ostrich feather, stuck his great head into the bucket of champagne and drank like his betters of the field. As a result, Denis and Jim had their meal in peace, for it was but lukewarm mutton and sodden duff, and while they ate, one of his friends informed them that "Bullocky" was the short for Bullock Creek, Bendigo, of which the great man was patron sinner, having made several fortunes there that year, and spent them in the way they saw. "Which isn't so bad," added his friend, who did discredit to a better class, "for a gentleman from over the way." Denis asked him what he meant. "An old hand from Van Diemen's Land," the man answered in a despicable undertone. And Denis felt inclined to tell the old hand, who now returned to crown his hospitality by forcing a nugget apiece upon the two beginners. "But it must be worth fifty pounds!" exclaimed Denis, in vain protest, as he handled his. "Fifty smacks in the mouth!" thundered Bullocky preparing to administer them. "You ain't on your dam' quarter-deck now!" "Very well," said Denis, "we'll keep them for luck, rather than come to blows about it; and we really must thank you----" "You dare!" interrupted Bullocky, with another flourish of his hairy fist. "It's no more'n wot I'd do for any other scum with all their troubles ahead on 'em. I ain't got no troubles fore nor aft; I'm Lord God o' Bullock Creek, I am, and I ain't done with you yet; you come along o' me." So saying, he led the way toward certain sounds of revelry which had begun to fill the lulls between his detonations. And in a marquee crowded with diggers, and reeking with the fumes from pipe and pot, the trio were in time for the last lines of a song from a buffoon on the platform at one end: "And when you think it's all serene-- Pop goes the weasel!" It was the latest song from England, and was vociferously encored; but not for the first time, it seemed, and the mountebank would only bow and scrape. In an instant the rank air was yellow with flying orange-peel. But Bullocky handed Jim a nugget to throw for him, which Mr. Doherty discharged with such effect that it hit the performer on one leg and sent him hopping round the stage on the other, until the nature of the projectile was discovered, and the song given yet again. At its close the plutocrat's party were accorded a table in front, and more drink ordered to Denis's embarrassment. "Careful, Jimmy," he contrived to whisper, and received a reassuring kick under the table by way of reply.