Not to amplify on details, our adventurer landed there safely, and was, of course, like all verdant voyagers, much surprised at the tariff of prices subjected to his notice. The porter who carried his trunk to the hotel charged him ten dollars; and though that same hotel was a leaky tent, a plate of tough beef was charged seventy-five cents, and a watery potato fifty. Business was very dull, too, at the moment of his arrival; the accounts from the mines were disastrous, and every thing announced an approaching crisis. Moses confided his griefs to Colonel Hateful Slowboy, his fellow-townsman, who was really one of the richest men in California, winding up with lamentations over the expected arrival of Prudence, whom he had promised to marry.
"What kin I do with a wife," said he, "when I can't support myself, even?"
"Very true," said the colonel. "Now, if it were me, the case would be very different."
"Prudence done all the courtin' herself, curnil," said our hero, sulkily. "I never should have offered if it hadn't been for her. I kinder like 'er pretty well, though: she's a sort of pretty nice gal."
"Well, Mose," said the colonel, "what do you say to giving up your claim?"
"Eh?" said Mose, pricking up his ears.
"What'll you take for your right and title—cash down—no questions asked?"
"Wall, I dunnow," said Mose, opening his jackknife and picking up a chip. "Prudence is a pretty nice gal, as you said, curnil."
"As you said, Mr. Jenkins."
"Wall, it's all the same. The critter's very fond of me and so be I of her. I had plaguy hard work, I tell you, to get her consent."