Page:Old Westland (1939).pdf/271

Rh had been at Oxford and spoke with a decided accent. He was a lion of a man, well over six feet and built in proportion, who dearly loved a fight, and invariably went into action quoting Shakespeare. On the day in question, as a number of Chinamen were passing the Lambing Flat hotel on their way to the Greenstone diggings, Gentleman George made bold to politely enquire from the leader of the Tipperary Boys “who the sunburnt Irishmen were?”

The fight that followed was a classic. George went into action reciting Hamlet’s “Soliloquy”: “To be (bang), or not to be (bang, bang), that is the question (biff), whether ’tis nobler in the mind (bang, bang, bang), to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,” etc., etc., etc, both men valiantly battling on, giving and taking severe punishment with the utmost fairness, until the police intervened, much to the disgust of the assembled crowd. Those were the days.

This “blue-eyed Briton” afterwards made a “pile” and became interested in an hotel, which he endeavoured to run on English lines. Now on the goldfields most of the diggers chewed tobacco, and in consequence cuspidors were very necessary articles of furniture. These he placed in every room and in great profusion in the bar; but his patrons would have none of them. He pleaded, then threatened, then