The first week's record was bad enough to make them laugh and too bad to continue. Washing everything after the second day, they had exactly half an ounce of gold dust by next Saturday night, while their further expenses amounted to several pounds. Everything but meat was at a fancy price, and in the beginning some new appliance was wanted every day. Denis held out against the dearer items as long as he could in decency, but it did not grow easier to restrict the partner who had contributed the lion's share of capital. The second week realized three ounces (£12 1s. 6d.), and cost less, though Moseley insisted on laying in fifty pounds of flour as a bargain for £2 15s. Denis for one, however, refused to be comforted by the second week. It was not bad, but to him a total and immediate failure would have been more acceptable than the prospect of a run of such insignificant success. The second week raised neither high hopes nor a laugh; the third began better, with an ounce on the Monday, but dropped at once to three or four pennyweight a day. This was worse than Moseley had done on Bendigo, and he was soon advocating a new claim on some lead that held good to the water's edge; but Denis was not so readily deterred, much less since at the outset he had invented a contrivance which reduced to a minimum the natural disadvantages of the flat, in the shape of a hand-barrow to hold as much wash-dirt as half-a-dozen tubs, and so save as many journeys to and from the river. It was only a couple of saplings with a few feet of canvas nailed across, which it took two to carry when full, but nobody happened to have thought of it before, and it was a success when nothing else succeeded.