Richard Continued Puddling, William,
Enacted Aquarius For Him, Whilst A Fifth Was Fully Occupied In
Conveying Fresh Dirt To The Tubs, And Taking The Puddled Stuff From
Them To The Hopper Of The Cradle.
Every now and then a, change of hands
was made, and thus passed the day.
In the evening, the products
were found to be one small nugget weighing a quarter of an ounce, and
in gold-dust eight pennyweights, ten grains, being worth, at the
digging price for gold, about thirty-five shillings. This was rather
less than we hard less calculated upon, and Richard signified his
intention of returning to Melbourne, "He could no longer put up with
such ungentlemanly work in so very unintellectual a neighbourhood, with
bad living into the bargain." These last words, which were pronounced
SOTTO VOCE, gave us a slight clue to the real cause of his dislike to
the diggings, though we, did not thoroughly understand it till next
morning. It originated in some bottles of mixed pickles which he had in
vain wanted Frank, who this week was caterer for the party, to purchase
at four shillings a bottle, which sum, as we were all on economical
thoughts intent, Frank refused to expend on any unnecessary article of
food. This we learnt next morning at breakfast, when Richard
congratulated himself on that being the last meal he should make of
tea, damper and muton, without the latter having something to render it
eatable. The puddling and cradling work had, I fancy, given the
finishing stroke to his disgust.
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