the procession had marched to the grove with music and banners, and the child had been deposited before a mock altar, Stumpy stepped before the expectant crowd.  “It ain’t my style to spoil fun, boys,” said the little man, stoutly eyeing the faces around him, “but it strikes me that this thing ain’t exactly on the squar.  It’s playing it pretty low down on this yer baby to ring in fun on him that he ain’t goin’ to understand.  And ef there’s goin’ to be any godfathers round, I’d like to see who’s got any better rights than me.”  A silence followed Stumpy’s speech.  To the credit of all humorists be it said that the first man to acknowledge its justice was the satirist thus stopped of his fun.  “But,” said Stumpy, quickly following up his advantage, “we’re here for a christening, and we’ll have it.  I proclaim you Thomas Luck, according to the laws of the United States and the State of California, so help me God.”  It was the first time that the name of the Deity had been otherwise uttered than profanely in the camp.  The form of christening was perhaps even more ludicrous than the satirist had conceived; but strangely enough, nobody saw it and nobody laughed.  “Tommy” was christened as seriously as he would have been under a Christian roof and cried and was comforted in as orthodox fashion.

And so the work of regeneration began in Roaring Camp.  Almost imperceptibly a change came over the settlement.  The cabin assigned to “Tommy Luck”—­or “The Luck,” as he was more frequently called—­first showed signs of improvement.  It was kept scrupulously clean and whitewashed.  Then it was boarded, clothed, and papered.  The rose wood cradle, packed eighty miles by mule, had, in Stumpy’s way of putting it, “sorter killed the rest of the furniture.”  So the rehabilitation of the cabin became a necessity.  The men who were in the habit of lounging in at Stumpy’s to see “how ‘The Luck’ got on” seemed to appreciate the change, and in self-defense the rival establishment of “Tuttle’s grocery” bestirred itself and imported a carpet and mirrors.  The reflections of the latter on the appearance of Roaring Camp tended to produce stricter habits of personal cleanliness.  Again Stumpy imposed a kind of quarantine upon those who aspired to the honor and privilege of holding The Luck.  It was a cruel mortification to Kentuck—­who, in the carelessness of a large nature and the habits of frontier life, had begun to regard all garments as a second cuticle, which, like a snake’s, only sloughed off through decay—­to be debarred this privilege from certain prudential reasons.  Yet such was the subtle influence of innovation that he thereafter appeared regularly every afternoon in a clean shirt and face still shining from his ablutions.  Nor were moral and social sanitary laws neglected.  “Tommy,” who was supposed to spend his whole existence in a persistent attempt to repose, must not be disturbed by noise.  The shouting and yelling, which had gained the camp its infelicitous title, were not permitted