The diggers' grievances
and their conflict with the government were now a turned page. At a
state trial all prisoners had been acquitted, and a general amnesty
declared for those rebels who were still at large. Unpopular ministers
had resigned or died; a new constitution for the colony awaited the
Royal assent; and pending this, two of the rebel-leaders, now prominent
townsmen, were chosen to sit in the Legislative Council. The future
could not have looked rosier. For others, that was. For him, Mahony, it
held more than one element of uncertainty.
At no time had he come near making a fortune out of storekeeping. For
one thing, he had been too squeamish. From the outset he had declined to
soil his hands with surreptitious grog-selling; nor would he be a party
to that evasion of the law which consisted in overcharging on other
goods, and throwing in drinks free. Again, he would rather have been
hamstrung than stoop to the tricks in vogue with regard to the weighing
of gold-dust: the greased scales, the wet sponge, false beams, and so
on. Accordingly, he had a clearer conscience than the majority and a
lighter till. But even at the legitimate ABC of business he had proved a
duffer. He had never, for instance, learned to be a really skilled hand
at stocking a shop. Was an out-of-the-way article called for, ten to one
he had run short of it; and the born shopman's knack of palming off or
persuading to a makeshift was not his.
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