devices, but we would so frequently exchange suits and otherwise
circumvent the enemy that they abandoned all such ineffectual
attempts, and during all the years that we lived together at home
everybody recognized the difficulty of the situation and made the
best of it by calling us both "Jehnry." I have often wondered at my
father's forbearance in not branding us conspicuously upon our
unworthy brows, but as we were tolerably good boys and used our power
of embarrassment and annoyance with commendable moderation, we
escaped the iron. My father was, in fact, a singularly good-natured
man, and I think quietly enjoyed nature's practical joke.

Soon after we had come to California, and settled at San Jose (where
the only good fortune that awaited us was our meeting with so kind a
friend as you) the family, as you know, was broken up by the death of
both my parents in the same week. My father died insolvent and the
homestead was sacrificed to pay his debts. My sisters returned to
relatives in the East, but owing to your kindness John and I, then
twenty-two years of age, obtained employment in San Francisco, in
different quarters of the town. Circumstances did not permit us to
live together, and we saw each other infrequently, sometimes not
oftener than once a week. As we had few acquaintances in common, the
fact of our extraordinary likeness was little known. I come now to
the matter of your inquiry.

One day soon after we had come to this city I was walking down Market
street late in the afternoon, when I was accosted by a well-dressed
man of middle age, who after greeting me cordially said: "Stevens, I
know, of course, that you do not go out much, but I have told my wife
about you, and she would be glad to see you at the house. I have a
notion, too, that my girls are worth knowing. Suppose you come out