One tempestuous night, an old hag who had long done business as a hermitess on Helmet Rock came into the bar-room at the Cliff House, and there, amidst the crushing thunders and lightnings spilling all over the horizon, she related that she had seen a young seal in a comfortable overcoat, sitting pensively upon the pinnacle of Seal Rock, and had distinctly heard the familiar words of a Methodist hymn.  Upon inquiry the tale was discovered to be founded upon fact.  The identity of this seal could no longer be denied without downright blasphemy, and in all the old chronicles of that period not a doubt is even implied.

One day a handsome, dark, young lieutenant of infantry, Don Edmundo by name, came out to the Cliff House to celebrate his recent promotion.  While standing upon the verge of the cliff, with his friends all about him, Lady Celia, as visitors had christened her, came swimming below him, and taking off her overcoat, laid it upon a rock.  She then turned up her eyes and sang a Methodist hymn.

No sooner did the brave Don Edmundo hear it than he tore off his gorgeous clothes, and cast himself headlong in the billows.  Lady Celia caught him dexterously by the waist in her mouth, and, swimming to the outer rock, sat up and softly bit him in halves.  She then laid the pieces tenderly in a conspicuous place, put on her overcoat, and plunging into the waters was never seen more.

Many are the wild fabrications of the poets about her subsequent career, but to this day nothing authentic has turned up.  For some months strenuous efforts were made to recover the wicked Lieutenant’s body.  Every appliance which genius could invent and skill could wield was put in requisition; until one night the landlord, fearing these constant efforts might frighten away the seals, had the remains quietly removed and secretly interred.  The Baffled Asian.

One day in ’49 an honest miner up in Calaveras county, California, bit himself with a small snake of the garter variety, and either as a possible antidote, or with a determination to enjoy the brief remnant of a wasted life, applied a brimming jug of whisky to his lips, and kept it there until, like a repleted leech, it fell off.

The man fell off likewise.

The next day, while the body lay in state upon a pine slab, and the bereaved partner of the deceased was unbending in a game of seven-up with a friendly Chinaman, the game was interrupted by a familiar voice which seemed to proceed from the jaws of the corpse:  “I say-Jim!”

Bereaved partner played the king of spades, claimed “high,” and then, looking over his shoulder at the melancholy remains, replied, “Well, what is it, Dave?  I’m busy.”

“I say-Jim!” repeated the corpse in the same measured tone.

With a look of intense annoyance, and muttering something about “people that could never stop dead more’n a minute,” the bereaved partner rose and stood over the body with his cards in his hand.