FIGHTING IT OUT ON THAT LINE.
While crossing Telegraph Hill this evening in the vicinity of the beach, I witnessed an incident which has kept me smiling to myself for the last two hours.
A couple of carters met in a street at a place which needed repairing. One cart was heavily loaded with brick. The other contained a small lot of coal.
The driver of No. 1 was in favor of suspending that time-honored clause in common law, which says, “turn to the right.” Having the heavier load he wished to adopt the English system:—
“The law of the road is a paradox quite;
For as you are driving along,
If you go to the left you are sure to go right,
If you go to the right you go wrong.”
But driver No. 2 was immovable as Cæsar when the conspirators with ready weapons knelt around him. He was determined to enforce his prerogative, even to the anchoring of his opponent’s cart.
No. 1 said he would “stand there until his corns sprouted.” No. 2 replied that he “wouldn’t budge until his corns not only sprouted, but until they went to seed, or he would have his rights.”
After considerable loud talk in which they freely expressed unqualified opinions of each other, they commenced unhitching their horses from the carts, as night was setting in, and quietly started off to their respective stables.
It happened they had met directly before the residence of a stout Teuton who owns a large brewery at the Beach. They had scarcely left the disputed point when the brewer arrived. His flushed face showed he had been freely testing the quality of his malt liquor. He demanded of some bystanders how the carts came there. Being informed of the whys and wherefores to his satisfaction, he called out his two stout sons to assist in removing the unsightly ornaments.
The united efforts of the three soon started the carts down the hill, in the direction of the bay, like a battery of flying artillery. It was only a few rods to the water, and in they plunged, one after the other, and shot out from the shore like things of life. The old man and his sons stood upon the crest of the hill viewing the descent in silence. After they had been successfully launched, the trio retired into the house with that self-satisfied and confident air that Emperor William and his two warlike aids might exhibit when retiring to their tent after a battle in which the enemy was routed. To some of the bystanders this seemed rather a precipitate proceeding; but to my untutored mind it was an act worthy to be ranked with the judicial hangings by the San Francisco Vigilance Committee.
As I left the hill, I took a last look back at the carts, fast growing indistinct in the gloom and mist closing over the bay. One craft was hugging the shore off Black Point, with a close reefed tail-board, and her wheel well under water. The other was sinking by the stern, but still scudding under bare poles in the direction of Raccoon Straits.