among the population into adopting the constitution and thus well-nigh killing the country (it could not well carry such a load as a State government, since it had nothing to tax that could stand a tax, for undeveloped mines could not, and there were not fifty developed ones in the land, there was but little realty to tax, and it did seem as if nobody was ever going to think of the simple salvation of inflicting a money penalty on murder).  I believed that a State government would destroy the “flush times,” and I wanted to get away.  I believed that the mining stocks I had on hand would soon be worth $100,000, and thought if they reached that before the Constitution was adopted, I would sell out and make myself secure from the crash the change of government was going to bring.  I considered $100,000 sufficient to go home with decently, though it was but a small amount compared to what I had been expecting to return with.  I felt rather down-hearted about it, but I tried to comfort myself with the reflection that with such a sum I could not fall into want.  About this time a schoolmate of mine whom I had not seen since boyhood, came tramping in on foot from Reese River, a very allegory of Poverty.  The son of wealthy parents, here he was, in a strange land, hungry, bootless, mantled in an ancient horse-blanket, roofed with a brimless hat, and so generally and so extravagantly dilapidated that he could have “taken the shine out of the Prodigal Son himself,” as he pleasantly remarked.

He wanted to borrow forty-six dollars—­twenty-six to take him to San Francisco, and twenty for something else; to buy some soap with, maybe, for he needed it.  I found I had but little more than the amount wanted, in my pocket; so I stepped in and borrowed forty-six dollars of a banker (on twenty days’ time, without the formality of a note), and gave it him, rather than walk half a block to the office, where I had some specie laid up.  If anybody had told me that it would take me two years to pay back that forty-six dollars to the banker (for I did not expect it of the Prodigal, and was not disappointed), I would have felt injured.  And so would the banker.

I wanted a change.  I wanted variety of some kind.  It came.  Mr. Goodman went away for a week and left me the post of chief editor.  It destroyed me.  The first day, I wrote my “leader” in the forenoon.  The second day, I had no subject and put it off till the afternoon.  The third day I put it off till evening, and then copied an elaborate editorial out of the “American Cyclopedia,” that steadfast friend of the editor, all over this land.  The fourth day I “fooled around” till midnight, and then fell back on the Cyclopedia again.  The fifth day I cudgeled my brain till midnight, and then kept the press waiting while I penned some bitter personalities on six different people.  The sixth day I labored in anguish till far into the night and brought forth—­nothing.  The paper went to press without an editorial.  The seventh day I resigned.  On the eighth, Mr. Goodman returned and found six duels on his hands—­my personalities had borne fruit.