"But Brewster," said Harding, "do you not think that a good miner is of more use to the world than a bad sculptor?"
"Suppose," said Carlin, "we were all to stop this four dollars a day business of ours and go to writing poetry, who would pay the Chinaman and settle the grocery bills at the end of the month?"
"Were not the Argonauts making pretty good use of their time," asked Miller, "when in twelve years they dug up and gave to the world nearly a thousand millions of dollars and caused such a change in the business of the country as comes to the fainting man's circulation through a transfusion of healthy blood into his veins?"
"Did you not tell us last evening," said Ashley, "that when a poor man earned a home for his wife and babies, that to him came the perfume and the light?"
"I carved out some beautiful stories and shpoke any amount of illegint poethry to Maggie Murphy, but it would not do," said Corrigan.
"There is a mirage before Brewster's eyes to-night," said Miller; "the business of most men is to earn bread."
Then Brewster, bristling up, responded:
"My answer to all of you is this: Man's first duty is to provide for himself, and for those dependent upon him, by honest toil, either of hand or brain, or both. For a long time you have each worked eight hours out of the twenty-four; perhaps eight hours more have been absorbed in eating and sleeping. What have you done with the other eight hours? You are miners. You can set timbers in line, you can lie on your backs and hit a drill above you with perfect precision; but could you make a draught of a mine, or clothe a description of one in good language on paper? You look upon a piece of ore, but can you test it and tell how much it is worth? These are all legitimate parts of your business as miners, and I refer to them merely to illustrate that in the excitements of this city, and the dream of getting rich in stock speculations, you have not only neglected your better natures, but have failed to thoroughly accomplish yourselves in your real business. You can see what you have actually lost, but you cannot estimate the pleasure you have been denying yourselves. Then when you are too old to work, what amusements and diversions are you preparing for old age?"
"For that, matter," said Miller, "ask the man who fell down the Alta shaft last week, 800 feet to the sump, and the pieces of whose body, that could be found, were sewed up in canvas to be brought to the surface."
Then there was a silence for several minutes until a freight train, with two locomotives (a double header), came up the heavy grade from Gold Hill and, when opposite the house of the Club, both locomotives whistled. At this Corrigan said: