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"I AM HERE."
There is no mistake about that, and there is a good prospect of my staying here for some time to come. The snow is deep on the ground, and more is falling.
The Doctor looks glum, and speaks of his ill-starred countryman, of Sir. J. Franklin, who went to the Arctic once too much.
A good thing happened down here the other day, said a miner from New Hampshire to me. "A man of Boston dressin' went through there, and at one of the stations there wasn't any mules. Says the man who was fixed out to kill in his Boston dressin', 'Where's them mules?' Says the driver, 'Them mules is into the sage brush. You go catch 'em—that's wot you do.' Says the man of Boston dressin', 'Oh no!' Says the driver! 'Oh, yes!'and he took his long coach-whip and licked the man of Boston dressin' till he went and caught them mules. How does that strike you for a joke?"
It didn't strike me as much of a joke to pay a hundred and seventy-five dollars in gold fare, and then be horse-whipped by stage-drivers, for declining to chase mules. But people's ideas of humor differ in regard to shrewdness which "reminds me of a little story."
Sitting in a New England country store one day I overheard the following dialogue between two brothers:
"Say, Bill, wot you done with that air sorrel mare of yourn?"
"Sold her," said William, with a smile of satisfaction.