half-hysterical laugh, "and that is why I want to go. Don't be alarmed,
Bill," he added; "I have strength enough to save myself, and I shall!
But it isn't worth the struggle HERE."

He left the "Lone Star House" that night. He would, he said to Bill, go
on to Sacramento, and try to get a situation as clerk or porter there;
he was too old to learn a trade. He said little more. When, after
forty-eight hours' inability to eat, drink, or sleep, Bill, looking at
his haggard face and staring eyes, pressed him to partake, medicinally,
from a certain black bottle, Jeff gently put it aside, and saying, with
a sad smile, "I can get along without it; I've gone through more than
this," left his mentor in a state of mingled admiration and perplexity.

At Sacramento he found a commercial "opening." But certain habits
of personal independence, combined with a direct truthfulness and
simplicity, were not conducive to business advancement. He was frank,
and in his habits impulsive and selfishly outspoken. His employer,
a good-natured man, successful in his way, anxious to serve his own
interest and Jeff's equally, strove and labored with him, but in vain.
His employer's wife, a still more good-natured woman, successful in her
way, and equally anxious to serve Jeff's interests and her own, also
strove with him as unsuccessfully. At the end of a month he discharged
his employer, after a simple, boyish, utterly unbusiness-like interview,
and secretly tore up his wife's letter. "I don't know what to make of
that chap," said the husband to his wife; "he's about as civilized as an
Injun." "And as conceited," added the lady.

Howbeit he took his conceit, his sorrows, his curls, mustaches, broad
shoulders, and fifty dollars into humble lodgings in a back street. The
days succeeding this were the most restful he had passed since he left