for Rattler was smart.

When the SKYSCRAPER arrived at San Francisco we had a grand "feed."
We agreed to meet every year and perpetuate the occasion. Of course we
didn't invite Fagg. Fagg was a steerage passenger, and it was necessary,
you see, now we were ashore, to exercise a little discretion. But Old
Fagg, as we called him--he was only about twenty-five years old, by the
way--was the source of immense amusement to us that day. It appeared
that he had conceived the idea that he could walk to Sacramento, and
actually started off afoot. We had a good time, and shook hands with one
another all around, and so parted. Ah me! only eight years ago, and yet
some of those hands then clasped in amity have been clenched at each
other, or have dipped furtively in one another's pockets. I know that
we didn't dine together the next year, because young Barker swore
he wouldn't put his feet under the same mahogany with such a very
contemptible scoundrel as that Mixer; and Nibbles, who borrowed money
at Valparaiso of young Stubbs, who was then a waiter in a restaurant,
didn't like to meet such people.

When I bought a number of shares in the Coyote Tunnel at Mugginsville,
in '54, I thought I'd take a run up there and see it. I stopped at the
Empire Hotel, and after dinner I got a horse and rode round the town and
out to the claim. One of those individuals whom newspaper correspondents
call "our intelligent informant," and to whom in all small communities
the right of answering questions is tacitly yielded, was quietly pointed
out to me. Habit had enabled him to work and talk at the same time, and
he never pretermitted either. He gave me a history of the claim, and
added: "You see, stranger," (he addressed the bank before him) "gold is
sure to come out'er that theer claim, (he put in a comma with his pick)
but the old pro-pri-e-tor (he wriggled out the word and the point of his