So, just keep your clothes on, Pamela, until I come.  Don’t you know that undemonstrated human calculations won’t do to bet on?  Don’t you know that I have only talked, as yet, but proved nothing?  Don’t you know that I have expended money in this country but have made none myself?  Don’t you know that I have never held in my hands a gold or silver bar that belonged to me?  Don’t you know that it’s all talk and no cider so far?  Don’t you know that people who always feel jolly, no matter where they are or what happens to them—­who have the organ of Hope preposterously developed—­who are endowed with an unconcealable sanguine temperament—­who never feel concerned about the price of corn—­and who cannot, by any possibility, discover any but the bright side of a picture—­are very apt to go to extremes and exaggerate with 40-horse microscopic power?

       But-but

In the bright lexicon of youth,
There is no such word as Fail—­

        and I’ll prove it!

Whereupon, he lets himself go again, full-tilt: 

By George, if I just had a thousand dollars I’d be all right!  Now there’s the “Horatio,” for instance.  There are five or six shareholders in it, and I know I could buy half of their interests at, say $20 per foot, now that flour is worth $50 per barrel and they are pressed for money, but I am hard up myself, and can’t buy —­and in June they’ll strike the ledge, and then “good-by canary.”  I can’t get it for love or money.  Twenty dollars a foot!  Think of it!  For ground that is proven to be rich.  Twenty dollars, Madam- and we wouldn’t part with a foot of our 75 for five times the sum.  So it will be in Humboldt next summer.  The boys will get pushed and sell ground for a song that is worth a fortune.  But I am at the helm now.  I have convinced Orion that he hasn’t business talent enough to carry on a peanut-stand, and he has solemnly promised me that he will meddle no more with mining or other matters not connected with the secretary’s office.  So, you see, if mines are to be bought or sold, or tunnels run or shafts sunk, parties have to come to me—­and me only.  I’m the “firm,” you know.

There are pages of this, all glowing with golden expectations and plans.  Ah, well! we have all written such letters home at one time and another-of gold-mines of one form or another.

He closes at last with a bit of pleasantry for his mother.

Ma says:  “It looks like a man can’t hold public office and be honest.”  Why, certainly not, Madam.  A man can’t hold public office and be honest.  Lord bless you, it is a common practice with Orion to go about town stealing little things that happen to be lying around loose.  And I don’t remember having heard him speak the truth since we have been in Nevada.  He even tries to prevail upon me to do these things, Ma, but I wasn’t brought up in that way, you know.  You showed the public