Jim Done walked about the streets for two hours, interested in
everything, disappointed with nothing. All this satisfied the craving
that had driven him from home. Here he was one of the people, a man
amongst men, accepted at his face and physical value by fellow-creatures
who respected most the fearless eye and the strong arm. Moreover, there
were no signs of those hated forces, respectability, piety,
conventionality, all of which had seemed to range themselves
automatically on the side of his enemies.

He came to a large wooden hall with a row of lamps blazing along its
front and a foreign sign over the door. From within floated strains of
music and the beating of many feet. Jim entered. The place was crowded
with hairy diggers--mostly successful, he learned presently. The
atmosphere was heavy with smoke. A wild dance was going on, and several
sets held the floor. Half a dozen of the most fortunate of the men had
female partners, the others danced 'bucks,' man and man, and the pounding
of their heavy boots and the yells of laughter provoked by their clumsy
movements quite drowned the music of the feeble orchestra, crowded away
in the far corner of the room. Along one end ran an unplaned wooden
counter, where two or three barmen were kept busy serving gin, brandy,
and rum to the parched dancers. When the dance was ended there was a rush
for the bar, and Jim found now that dancing did not go by favour, the
hands of the fair being bestowed upon the highest bidders. One tall,
lack-haired, laughing girl, with the figure and face of a Bacchante,
sprang upon a chair, shaking aloft a yellow scarf, and was auctioned for
the next dance amidst a storm of bidding and a hurricane of merriment.
She was borne down the room in the arms of the triumphant digger, who had
paid thirty 'weights' for his bouncing partner--six pounds for ten
minutes' dancing, and the proud purchaser couldn't dance a step!