restraint; but wherever there was a post to lean against a man was
leaning against it, exactly as if there were nothing doing, and the world
had not just run demented over the richness of their Victorian fields. It
remained for him to learn that this very excitement provoked a
corresponding lassitude, and that when the Australian diggers were not
indulging in the extreme of frenzied exertion or boisterous recreation
their inertia surpassed that of their own koala, the native sloth.

Ere he reached the busier part of the town, Jim made the disconcerting
discovery that he was a marked man, an object of public contumely. He had
heard calls of derision at various points along the road, and was
convinced now that for some reason or another he was exciting the
laughter and badinage of the men. This was a painful shock to Done's
happiness. The situation recalled Chisley, and something of the old
Ishmael stirred within him. He set his teeth and hurried on.
'Pea-souper!' was the epithet most in favour amongst his tormentors. Why
'Pea-souper!' Jim could not understand. He could see no aptness in its
application to him, and yet it was certainly a term of mockery.
'Pea-souper!' The taunt had an ignominious flavour. It hurt because it
recalled so much of what he had travelled halfway round the world to
escape.

He plunged into Elizabeth Street as if seeking cover. Here the crowd was
thick, and one man might pass unheeded. Elizabeth Street was the busiest
thoroughfare of Melbourne--a miserable, unformed street, the buildings of
which were perched on either side of a gully. Pedestrians who were not
sober ran serious risks of falling from the footpaths into the roadway
below, a rather serious fall in places. Plunged is the right word; the
road was churned into a dust-pit, on the footpath the dust lay
ankle-deep, and people on foot had the appearance of wading through