“No thanks to you, sir,” I replied, “running us up a thousand at a time, and tempting all the speculators in San Francisco to come and have a try.”
“O, that was temporary insanity,” said he; “and I thank the higher powers I am still a free man. Walking this way, Mr. Dodd? I’ll walk along with you. It’s pleasant for an old fogey like myself to see the young bloods in the ring; I’ve done some pretty wild gambles in my time in this very city, when it was a smaller place and I was a younger man. Yes, I know you, Mr. Dodd. By sight, I may say I know you extremely well, you and your followers, the fellows in the kilts, eh? Pardon me. But I have the misfortune to own a little box on the Saucelito shore. I’ll be glad to see you there any Sunday—without the fellows in kilts, you know; and I can give you a bottle of wine, and show you the best collection of Arctic voyages in the States. Morgan is my name—Judge Morgan—a Welshman and a forty-niner.”
“O, if you’re a pioneer,” cried I, “come to me, and I’ll provide you with an axe.”
“You’ll want your axes for yourself, I fancy,” he returned, with one of his quick looks. “Unless you have private knowledge, there will be a good deal of rather violent wrecking to do before you find that—opium, do you call it?”
“Well, it’s either opium, or we are stark staring mad,” I replied. “But I assure you we have no private information. We went in (as I suppose you did yourself) on observation.”
“An observer, sir?” inquired the judge.
“I may say it is my trade—or, rather, was,” said I.
“Well now, and what did you think of Bellairs?” he asked.
“Very little indeed,” said I.
“I may tell you,” continued the judge, “that to me the employment of a fellow like that appears inexplicable. I knew him: he knows me, too; he has often heard from me in court; and I assure you the man is utterly blown upon; it is not safe to trust him with a dollar, and here we find him dealing up to fifty thousand. I can’t think who can have so trusted him, but I am very sure it was a stranger in San Francisco.”