The Comstock Club Part 24

"Indeed you did, Harding," said Brewster. "One street fight at your age might ruin you for life."

"That is quite true," said Miller; "I am glad you had no fight."

Said Corrigan: "You offered to fight any one of the blackguards, and whin they refused, you came away? It was the proper thing to do."

"Did you have any weapons with you, Harding?" asked Ashley.

"Not a thing in the world," was the reply.

"I am glad of that," said Ashley. "The temptation to wing one or two of the brutes, would have been very great had you been 'fixed.'"

"I am glad it was no worse," said Wright. "You said it was down by the California Bank corner?"

"No," replied Harding; "it was by the Fredericksburg Brewery corner, on Union Street, just below C."

"You managed the matter first-rate, Harding," said Wright. "Do not think any more about it."

Harding, thus rea.s.sured by his friends, felt better, but said if three of the Club would go with him he would undertake to do his part to bring hostilities to a successful close with the bullies.

Ashley and Corrigan at once volunteered, but Wright and Carlin interfered and said it must not be, and Brewster expostulated against any such thing.

Corrigan and Ashley caught a look and gesture from Wright which caused them to subside, and Harding at length went out to supper.

When Harding came in from up town, Miller was making arrangements to go out, as he said, to meet a broker as per agreement. As Harding went to supper, Miller went out and Brewster resumed the reading of a book in which he was engaged. The Professor, Colonel and Alex had not yet come in.

Significant glances pa.s.sed between the others, and soon Wright arose and said: "Boys! the Emmetts drill to-night; suppose we go down to the armory and look on for half an hour."

The rest all agreed that it would be good exercise, and quietly the four men went out, Wright saying as he started: "Brewster, if the others come, tell them we have just gone down to the Emmetts armory, and will be back in half an hour or so."

The Professor and Alex shortly after came in, a little later the Colonel and Miller. It was nearly an hour before the others returned. When they did they were in the best possible humor; spoke of the perfectness of the Emmetts' drill; told of something they had heard down town which was droll, while Barney in particular was full of merriment over a speech that had that day been made by a countryman of his, Mr. Snow, in a Democratic convention, and insisted upon telling Brewster about it.

Brewster laid down his book and a.s.sumed the att.i.tude of a listener.

"It was this way," said Barney. "The convintion had made all its nominations, when it was proposed that on Friday nixt a grand ma.s.s-ratification matin' should be hild at Carson City, the matin' to be intinded for the inauguratin' of the campaign, where all the faithful from surroundin' counties might mate and glorify, and thus intimidate the inemy from the viry commincement.

"The proposition was carried by acclamation, and jist thin a mimber sprang up and moved that the matin' should be a barbecue. This motion likewise carried by an overwhilmin' vote. Whin the noise died away a bit, my ould friend Snow, he of the boardin' house, arose and made a motion. It was beautiful. Listen!

"'Mr. Spaker! Bain that the hift of the Dimocratic party do not ate _mate_ of a Friday, I move yees, sir, that we make it a _fish_ barbecue.'"

A great laugh followed Barney's account of the motion, and then the usual comparison of notes on stocks took place. Miller was sure that Silver Hill was the best buy on the lode; Corrigan had been told by a Gold Hill miner that Justice was looking mighty encouraging; the Colonel had heard the superintendent of the Curry tell the superintendent of the Belcher that he was in wonderfully kindly ground on the two thousand foot level; the Professor had that day heard the superintendent of the Savage declare that the water was lowering four feet an hour, while all were wondering when the Sierra Nevada would break, as it was too high for the development. By all is meant all but Brewster and Harding; they never joined in any conversations about stocks.

At length the stock talk slackened, when Corrigan again referred to the fish barbecue resolution. Naturally enough, the conversation drifted into a discussion of the humor of the coast, when the Colonel said:

"There is not much pure humor on this coast. There is plenty of that material called humor, which has a bitter sting to it, but that is not the genuine article. The men here who think as Hood wrote, are not plenty. I suspect the bitter tw.a.n.g to all the humor here comes from the isolation of men from the society of women, from broken hopes, and it seems to me is generally an attempt to hurl contempt, not upon the individual at whom it is fired, but at the outrageous fortunes which hedge men around. The coast has been running over with that sort of thing, I guess since 'forty-nine.'

"A man here, fond of his wife and children, said to a friend a day or two after they went away for a visit to California: 'Did you ever see a motherless colt?'

"'Oh, yes,' was the reply.

"'Then,' said the man, 'you know just how I feel.'

"'Yes,' said the friend. 'I suppose you feel as though you are not worth a dam.'

"I know a brother lawyer who is somewhat famous for getting the clients whom he defends convicted. One morning he met a brother attorney, a wary old lawyer, and said to him: 'I heard some men denouncing you this morning and I took up your defense.'

"'What did you say?' the other asked.

"'Those men were slandering you and I took it upon myself to defend you,' said the first lawyer.

"The old lawyer took the other by the arm, led him aside, then putting his lips close to the ear of his friend, in a hoa.r.s.e whisper said: 'Don't do it any more.'

"'I am going to lecture to-night at C----,' said a pompous man.

"'I am glad of it,' was the quick answer. 'I have hated the people there for years. No punishment is too severe for them.'

"'I am particular who I drink with,' said a man curtly to another.

"'Yes?' was the answer. 'I outgrew that foolish pride long ago. I would as soon you would drink with me as not.'

"'I do not require lecturing from you,' said a man. 'I am no reformed drunkard.'

"'Then why do you not reform?' was the response.

"This coast is full of the echoes of such things."

The Professor spoke next. "I think," said he, "that there is more extravagance in figures of speech on this coast than in any other country. Marcus Shults had a difficulty in Eureka the other day, when I was there. He told me about it. Said he: 'I told him to keep away; that I was afraid of him. I wanted some good man to hear me say that, but I had my eye on him every minute, and had he come a step nearer, why--when the doctors would have been called in to dissect him they would have thought they had struck a new lead mine.'"

Here Wright interrupted the Professor. "Marcus was from my State, Professor. Did you ever hear him explain why he did not become a fighter?"

The Professor answered that he never had, when Wright continued:

"Marcus never took kindly to hard work. Indeed, he seems to have const.i.tutional objections to it. As he tells the story, while crossing the plains he made up his mind that, upon reaching California, he would declare himself and speedily develop into a fighter. His words, when he told me the story, were: 'They knew me back in Missouri, and I was a good deal too smart to attempt to practice any such profession there, but my idea was that California was filled with Yankees, and in that kind of a community I would have an easy going thing. Well, I crossed the Sierras and landed at Diamond Springs, outside of Placerville a few miles, and when I had been there a short time I changed my mind.'

"Of course at this point some one asks him why he changed his mind, whereupon he answers solemnly:

"'The first day I was there a State of Maine man cut the stomach out of a Texan.'

"Marcus was with the boys during that first tough winter in Eureka. One fearfully cold day a man was telling about the cold he had experienced in Idaho. When the story was finished Marcus cast a look of sovereign contempt upon the man and said:

"'You know nothing about cold weather, sir; you never saw any. You should go to Montana. In Montana I have seen plenty of mornings when were a man to have gone out of a warm room, crossed a street sixty feet wide and shaken his head, his ears would have snapped off like icicles.'

"The stranger, overawed, retired."

Alex spoke next: "The other day Dan Dennison asked me to go and look at a famous trotting horse that he has here. We went to the stable, and when the stepper was pointed out I started to go into the stall beside him, whereupon Dan caught me by the arm, drew me back, and said:

"'Be careful! Sometimes he deals from the bottom.'

"He stripped the covers from the horse and backed him out where I could look at him. The horse was not a beauty by any means and I intimated my belief of that fact to Dan.