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.
DUDLEY’S FIGHT WITH DR. TWEEZER.
Jim Dudley called again last night, and, as usual, bored me with one of his yarns. I overshot myself by mentioning to him how low he stood in the estimation of Doctor Tweezer, for that brought down the following upon my head:—
“Dr. Tweezer didn’t speak very highly of me, eh! Wal, ’tain’t to be wondered at when you know how I wrought upon his feelin’s once. When a feller has to go around among his patients for more’n two weeks with a beefsteak the size of a hearth rug tied to his face, as he did, he ain’t agwine to hurt himself eulogizin’ the person who set him off,—not much.
“Ever fight? wal, I reckon you’d think so if you had seen the Doctor’s yard arter we got through turnin’ the chips over thar. He can fight, and squirm like a cat with her tail in a tongs, that Dr. Tweezer can.