Nothing more easy.—

[He comes nearer; a look of strangeness comes over him.

I was gold-digging once in San Francisco.

There were mountebanks swarming all over the town.

One with his toes could perform on the fiddle;

Another could dance a Spanish halling[[123]] on his knees;

A third, I was told, kept on making verses

While his brain-pan was having a hole bored right through it.

To the mountebank-meeting came also the devil;—

Thought he’d try his luck with the rest of them.