If that's what you want, I won't say but Ahalala is as good a place as you'll find in the colony.' Then he brought a bottle of whisky out of a cupboard, and treated them to a glass of grog apiece.

Beyond that his hospitality did not go.
Dick looked as though he liked the idea of having a venture in the 'Old Stick-in-the-Mud.' Caldigate, without actually disbelieving all that had been said to him, did not relish the proposal.

It was not the kind of thing which they had intended.

After they had learned their trade as miners it might be very well for them to have shares in some established concern;--but in that case he would wish to be one of the managers himself, and not to trust everything to any Crinkett, however honest.
That suggestion of travelling about and amusing themselves, did not commend itself to him.

New South Wales might, he thought, be a good country for work, but did not seem to offer much amusement beyond sheer idleness, and brandy-and-water.
'I rather think we should like to do a little in the rough first,' he said.
'A very little'll go a long way with you, I'm thinking.' 'I don't see that at all,' said Dick, stoutly.
'You go down there and take one of them picks in your hand for a week,--eight hours at a time, with five minutes' spell allowed for a smoke, and see how you'll feel at the end of the week.' 'We'll try it on, if you'll give us 10s.