 | The fiend's delight |  |
The Optimist, and What He Died Of.
One summer evening, while strolling with considerable
difficulty over Russian Hill, San Francisco,
Mr. Grile espied a man standing upon the extreme
summit, with a pensive brow and a suit of clothes
which seemed to have been handed down through a
Mr. Grile respectfully saluted; a man who has any
clothes at all is to him an object of veneration.
The stranger opened the conversation:
“My son,” said he, in a tone suggestive of
strangulation by the Sheriff, “do you behold this
wonderful city, its wharves crowded with the shipping
of all nations?”
Mr. Grile beheld with amazement.
“Twenty-one years ago—alas! it used to be but
twenty,” and he wiped away a tear—“you might
have bought the whole dern thing for a Mexican
ounce.”
Mr. Grile hastened to proffer a paper of tobacco,
which disappeared like a wisp of oats drawn into a
threshing machine.
“I was one among the first who_____”
Mr. Grile hit him on the head with a paving-stone
by way of changing the topic.
“Young man,” continued he, “do you feel
this bommy breeze? There isn't a climit in the
world_____”
This melancholy relic broke down in a fit of
coughing. No sooner had he recovered than he
leaped into the air, making a frantic clutch at something,
but apparently without success.
“Dern it,” hissed he, “there goes my teeth;
blowed out again, by hokey!”
A passing cloud of dust hid him for a moment
from view, and when he reappeared he was an
altered man; a paroxysm of asthma had doubled
him up like a nut-cracker.
“Excuse me,” he wheezed, “I'm subject to this;
caught it crossin' the Isthmus in '49. As I was
a-sayin', there's no country in the world that offers
such inducements to the immygrunt as Californy.
With her fertile soil, her unrivalled climit, her magnificent
bay, and the rest of it, there is enough for
all.”
This venerable pioneer picked a fragmentary biscuit
from the street and devoured it. Mr. Grile
thought this had gone on about long enough. He
twisted the head off that hopeful old party, surrendered
himself to the authorities, and was at once
discharged.
| The fiend's delight | |