ushered into a cool,
lofty room, where there were a lot of mahogany desks, and a single old
clerk, who resembled a last year's dried lemon, with some few drops of
acid juice for blood, perched up on a hard stem of a high stool, with
four or five quill pens, like so many thorns, sticking out above his
yellow leafy ears.

"All by myself here, Cleveland, as I told you. All my people are living
out there at Escondido. Very little business doing just now, and Paddy
Burns and Tom Stewart haven't had a suit or a fight for the last six
months. Inkstands dry, and my old clerk, Clinker, there, has forgotten
how to write English.

"However," went on Piron, as the party threw themselves back on the
wicker arm-chairs, and enjoyed the breeze which fluttered merrily
through the blinds, "the cellar isn't quite dry yet; and I say, Clinker,
suppose you tell Nimble Jack, or Ring Finger Bill, to spread a little
luncheon here, with a bottle or two of Bordeaux, or something of that
sort!" The dried, fruity old gentleman dropped off his branch at the
desk like a withered nut, and then, with a husky kind of shuffle, betook
himself off.

[Illustration: "QUEER OLD STICK, THAT!" SAID THE COMMODORE.]

"Queer old stick, that!" said the commodore, as he unbuckled his
sword and laid it on the table.

"Ah! he grew here, and will blow away one of these days. My father used
to tell me that he looked just the same when he first sprouted as he
does now. But he is a dear faithful old stump; and you must remember
hearing, Cleveland, of that frightful earthquake here in seventeen
hundred and eighty-three, which killed so many people? Yes? Well, it was
old Clinker who saved my sweet wife that is now--and her sister; though
he was nearly squeezed--drier, if any thing, than he is now--in doing
it. He lay, you know, Stingo, supporting the whole second story of the
house for seven hours, pressed as flat as a tamarind-leaf, while they
were getting those twin babies out of their cradle. Yes, God bless him!"
Starting up, while a flush of feeling darkened his face--"but, what is
more, he threw himself precisely where he did, as he saw the walls
giving way, so that not a hair of those children should be injured when
the beams came down. My father has told me since, that when they got a
lever under the timber and wedged old Clinker out, he gave a kind of
cackle; but, in my opinion, he has not drawn a breath from that day to
this. And, generally, he is a very ta