It was easy to swear to do these two things, but it was entirely impossible to do more than one of them.  When greenbacks had gone down to forty cents on the dollar, the prices regularly charged everybody by printing establishments were one dollar and fifty cents per “thousand” and one dollar and fifty cents per “token,” in gold.  The “instructions” commanded that the Secretary regard a paper dollar issued by the government as equal to any other dollar issued by the government.  Hence the printing of the journals was discontinued.  Then the United States sternly rebuked the Secretary for disregarding the “instructions,” and warned him to correct his ways.  Wherefore he got some printing done, forwarded the bill to Washington with full exhibits of the high prices of things in the Territory, and called attention to a printed market report wherein it would be observed that even hay was two hundred and fifty dollars a ton.  The United States responded by subtracting the printing-bill from the Secretary’s suffering salary—­and moreover remarked with dense gravity that he would find nothing in his “instructions” requiring him to purchase hay!

Nothing in this world is palled in such impenetrable obscurity as a U.S.  Treasury Comptroller’s understanding.  The very fires of the hereafter could get up nothing more than a fitful glimmer in it.  In the days I speak of he never could be made to comprehend why it was that twenty thousand dollars would not go as far in Nevada, where all commodities ranged at an enormous figure, as it would in the other Territories, where exceeding cheapness was the rule.  He was an officer who looked out for the little expenses all the time.  The Secretary of the Territory kept his office in his bedroom, as I before remarked; and he charged the United States no rent, although his “instructions” provided for that item and he could have justly taken advantage of it (a thing which I would have done with more than lightning promptness if I had been Secretary myself).  But the United States never applauded this devotion.  Indeed, I think my country was ashamed to have so improvident a person in its employ.

Those “instructions” (we used to read a chapter from them every morning, as intellectual gymnastics, and a couple of chapters in Sunday school every Sabbath, for they treated of all subjects under the sun and had much valuable religious matter in them along with the other statistics) those “instructions” commanded that pen-knives, envelopes, pens and writing-paper be furnished the members of the legislature.  So the Secretary made the purchase and the distribution.  The knives cost three dollars apiece.  There was one too many, and the Secretary gave it to the Clerk of the House of Representatives.  The United States said the Clerk of the House was not a “member” of the legislature, and took that three dollars out of the Secretary’s salary, as usual.