said, half chidingly, half tolerantly,
"Roosevelt, the muggins, I am afraid he is having a good time putting
bullets through those friends of his." Now I had heard him call Mr.
Burroughs "You muggins" in the same winning, endearing way he said
"Johnnie"; I had heard him speak of a petrified tree in the Sigillaria
forest as a "muggins"; of a bear that trespassed on his flowery domains
in the Sierra meadows as a "muggins" that he tried to look out of
countenance and failed; of a "comical little muggins of a daisy" that
some one had named after him; and one day he had rejoiced my heart by
dubbing me "You muggins, you"; and behold! here he was now applying the
elastic term to our many-sided (I did not say "strenuous") ex-President!
Later I heard him apply it to a Yosemite waterfall, and by then should
not have been surprised to hear him speak of a mighty glacier, or a
giant sequoia, as a "muggins."

"Stickeen," Mr. Muir's incomparable dog story, came out in book form
while we were in Pasadena. I sent a copy to my brother, who wrote later
asking me to inquire of Mr. Muir why he did not keep Stickeen after
their perilous adventures together. So I put the question to him one
day. "Keep him!" he ejaculated, as he straightened his back, and the
derisive wrinkles appeared on one side of his nose; "keep him! he wasn't
mine--I'm Scotch, I never steal." Then he explained that Stickeen's real
master was attached to him; that he could not take him from him; and
besides, the dog was accustomed to a cold climate, and would have been
very unhappy in California. "Oh, no, I couldn't keep Stickeen," he said
wistfully, but one felt that he _had_ kept Stickeen, the best part of
him, by immortalizing him in that story.

While we were housekeeping in Pasadena, Mr. Burroughs began writing on
the Grand Canon. One morning, after having disposed of several untimely
callers, he had finally settled down to work. We sat around the big
table writing or reading. Mr. Burroughs was there in the body, but
in spirit we could see he was at the "Divine Abyss," as he called
the Canon. Once he read us a few sentences which were so good that I
resolved we must try harder to prevent interruptions, that he might
keep all his writing up to that standard. But while engaged in
letter-writing, some point arose, and, forgetting my laudable
resolution, I put a question to him. Answering me abstractedly, he went
on with his writing. Then I realized how inexcusable it wa