United States and the State of California, so help me God." It was the
first time that the name of the Deity had been otherwise uttered than
profanely in the camp. The form of christening was perhaps even more
ludicrous than the satirist had conceived; but strangely enough,
nobody saw it and nobody laughed. "Tommy" was christened as seriously
as he would have been under a Christian roof, and cried and was
comforted in as orthodox fashion.

And so the work of regeneration began in Roaring Camp. Almost
imperceptibly a change came over the settlement. The cabin assigned to
"Tommy Luck"--or "The Luck," as he was more frequently called--first
showed signs of improvement. It was kept scrupulously clean and
whitewashed. Then it was boarded, clothed, and papered. The rosewood,
cradle, packed eighty miles by mule, had, in Stumpy's way of putting
it, "sorter killed the rest of the furniture." So the rehabilitation
of the cabin became a necessity. The men who were in the habit of
lounging in at Stumpy's to see "how 'The Luck' got on" seemed to
appreciate the change, and in self-defense the rival establishment of
"Tuttle's grocery" bestirred itself and imported a carpet and mirrors.
The reflections of the latter on the appearance of Roaring Camp tended
to produce stricter habits of personal cleanliness. Again Stumpy
imposed a kind of quarantine upon those who aspired to the honor and
privilege of holding The Luck. It was a cruel mortification to
Kentuck--who, in the carelessness of a large nature and the habits of
frontier life, had begun to regard all garments as a second cuticle,
which, like a snake's, only sloughed off through decay--to be debarred
this privilege from certain prudential reasons. Yet such was the
subtle influence of innovation that he thereafter appeared regularly
every afternoon in a clean shirt and face still shining from his
ablutions. Nor were moral and social sanitary laws neglected. "Tommy,"