recommended them to apply to Marshall, the reporter of the other paper.
I asked Dan if it was a good, honest mine, and no swindle. He said the
men had shown him nine tons of the rock, which they had got out to take
to New York, and he could cheerfully say that he had seen but little rock
in Nevada that was richer; and moreover, he said that they had secured a
tract of valuable timber and a mill-site, near the mine. My first idea
was to kill Dan. But I changed my mind, notwithstanding I was so angry,
for I thought maybe the chance was not yet lost. Dan said it was by no
means lost; that the men were absent at the mine again, and would not be
in Virginia to leave for the East for some ten days; that they had
requested him to do the talking to Marshall, and he had promised that he
would either secure Marshall or somebody else for them by the time they
got back; he would now say nothing to anybody till they returned, and
then fulfil his promise by furnishing me to them.
It was splendid. I went to bed all on fire with excitement; for nobody
had yet gone East to sell a Nevada silver mine, and the field was white
for the sickle. I felt that such a mine as the one described by Dan
would bring a princely sum in New York, and sell without delay or
difficulty. I could not sleep, my fancy so rioted through its castles in
the air. It was the “blind lead” come again.
Next day I got away, on the coach, with the usual eclat attending
departures of old citizens,–for if you have only half a dozen friends
out there they will make noise for a hundred rather than let you seem to
go away neglected and unregretted–and Dan promised to keep strict watch
for the men that had the mine to sell.
The trip was signalized but by one little incident, and that occurred
just as we were about to start. A very seedy looking vagabond passenger
got out of the stage a moment to wait till the usual ballast of silver
bricks was thrown in. He was standing on the pavement, when an awkward
express employee, carrying a brick weighing a hundred pounds, stumbled
and let it fall on the bummer’s foot. He instantly dropped on the ground
and began to howl in the most heart-breaking way. A sympathizing crowd
gathered around and were going to pull his boot off; but he screamed
louder than ever and they desisted; then he fell to gasping, and between
the gasps ejaculated “Brandy! for Heaven’s sake, brandy!” They poured
half a pint down him, and it wonderfully restored and comforted him.
Then he begged the people to assist him to the stage, which was done.
The express people urged him to have a doctor at their expense, but he
declined, and said that if he only had a little brandy to take along with
him, to soothe his paroxyms of pain when they came on, he would be
grateful and content. He was quickly supplied with two bottles, and we
drove off. He was so smiling and happy after that, that I could not
refrain from asking him how he could possibly be so comfortable with a
crushed foot.
“Well,” said he, “I hadn’t had a drink for twelve hours, and hadn’t a
cent to my name. I was most perishing–and so, when that duffer dropped
that hundred-pounder on my foot, I see my chance. Got a cork leg, you
know!” and he pulled up his pantaloons and proved it.
He was as drunk as a lord all day long, and full of chucklings over his
timely ingenuity.
One drunken man necessarily reminds one of another. I once heard a
gentleman tell about an incident which he witnessed in a Californian bar-
room. He entitled it “Ye Modest Man Taketh a Drink.” It was nothing but
a bit of acting, but it seemed to me a perfect rendering, and worthy of
Toodles himself. The modest man, tolerably far gone with beer and other