way, Kernel, since de day pooh Massa Stryker was fetched home shot froo
de head."

"Hand me down the whiskey, Jim," said the Colonel, rising slowly.

The negro flew to the closet joyfully, and brought out the bottle.
The Colonel poured out a glass of the spirit and drank it with his old
deliberation.

"You're quite right, Jim," he said, putting down his glass, "but
I'm--er--getting old--and--somehow I am missing poor Stryker damnably!"




THE LANDLORD OF THE BIG FLUME HOTEL


The Big Flume stage-coach had just drawn up at the Big Flume Hotel
simultaneously with the ringing of a large dinner bell in the two hands
of a negro waiter, who, by certain gyrations of the bell was trying to
impart to his performance that picturesque elegance and harmony
which the instrument and its purpose lacked. For the refreshment thus
proclaimed was only the ordinary station dinner, protracted at Big
Flume for three quarters of an hour, to allow for the arrival of the
connecting mail from Sacramento, although the repast was of a nature
that seldom prevailed upon the traveler to linger the full period over
its details. The ordinary cravings of hunger were generally satisfied in
half an hour, and the remaining minutes were employed by the passengers
in drowning the memory of their meal in "drinks at the bar," in smoking,