the major promised him Rose Cottage for a permanent residence as soon as
he would find a mistress for it.

Naturally, the young man succombed to the influences exerted against
him, and, after Mr. and Mrs. Doyson were fairly settled, the major told
his own wife, to her intense amusement, the history of the letter which
induced her to change her name.




BUFFLE.


How he came by his name, no one could tell. In the early days of the
gold fever there came to California a great many men who did not
volunteer their names, and as those about them had been equally reticent
on their own advent, they asked few questions of newcomers.

The hotels of the mining regions never kept registers for the
accommodation of guests--they were considered well-appointed hotels if
they kept water-tight roofs and well-stocked bars.

Newcomers were usually designated at first by some peculiarity of
physiognomy or dress, and were known by such names as "Broken Nose,"
"Pink Shirt," "Cross Bars," "Gone Ears," etc.; if, afterward, any man
developed some peculiarity of character, an observing and original miner
would coin and apply a new name, which would afterward be accepted as
irrevocably as a name conferred by the holy rite of baptism.