always struck me that Colonel Pendleton was himself an honorable
man."

"It ain't that," said Captain Stidger energetically, "but the
trouble with Harry Pendleton is that he hasn't grown with the
State, and never adjusted himself to it. And he won't. He thinks
the Millennium was between the fall of '49 and the spring of '50,
and after that everything dropped. He belongs to the old days,
when a man's simple WORD was good for any amount if you knew him;
and they say that the old bank hadn't a scrap of paper for half
that was owing to it. That was all very well, sir, in '49 and '50,
and--Luck; but it won't do for '59 and '60, and--Business! And the
old man can't see it."

"But he is ready to fight for it now, as in the old time," said Mr.
Slate, "and that's another trouble with his chronology. He's done
more to keep up dueling than any other man in the State, and don't
know the whole spirit of progress and civilization is against it."

It was impossible to tell from Paul Hathaway's face whether his
sympathy with Colonel Pendleton's foibles or his assent to the
criticisms of his visitors was the truer. Both were no doubt
equally sincere. But the party was presently engaged in the
absorption of refreshment, which, being of a purely, spirituous and
exhilarating quality, tended to increase their good humor with the
host till they parted. Even then a gratuitous advertisement of his
virtues and their own intentions in calling upon him was
oratorically voiced from available platforms and landings, in the
halls and stairways, until it was pretty well known throughout the
Golden Gate Hotel that the Hon. Mr. Paul Hathaway had arrived from