of Oakland and slay them, and
float the pork barrels out of their cellars, and fill their cisterns
with people who had sneered at his prophecy.

This gentleman was an industrious prophet and did a good business in his
line. He attracted much notice, and had all he could do at his trade
for several weeks. Many Oakland people were frightened, especially as
Wiggins, the great intellectual Sahara of the prophet industry, also
prophesied a high wave which would rise at least above the bills at the
Palace Hotel in San Francisco. With the aid of these two gifted
middle-weight prophets, I was enabled to secure some good bargains in
corner lots and improved property in Oakland at ten per cent. of the
estimated value. In other words, I put my limited powers as a prophet
against those of Professor Wiggins, the painstaking and conscientious
seer of Canada, and the bicycle prophet of the Pacific slope. I am
willing to stand or fall by the result.

As a prophet I have never attracted attention in this country, mostly
because I have been too busy with other things. Also because there was
so little prophesying to be done in these degenerate days that I did not
care to take hold of the industry; but I have ever been ready to
purchase at a great discount the desirable residences of those
contemplating a general collapse of the universe, or a tidal wave which
would wipe out the general government and cover with a placid sea the
mighty republic which God has heretofore, for some reason, smiled upon.
Moreover, I can hardly believe that the Deity would commission a man to
go out over California on a bicycle to warn people, when a few red
messages and a standing notice in the newspapers would do the work in
less time. Reasoning in this manner with a sturdy logic worthy of my
rich and unctious past, I have secured some good trades in down-town
property, and shall await the coming devastation with a calm and
entirely unruffled breast.

California, at any season of the year, is a miracle of beauty, as almost
every one knows. Nature heightens the effect for the tenderfoot by
compelling him to cross the Alpine heights of the Sierra Nevada
Mountains and freeze approximately to death in the cold heart of a snow
blockade. Thus, weather-beaten and sore, he reaches the rolling green
hills and is greeted with the rich odor of violets. I submitted to the
insults of a tottering monopoly for a week, in the heart of the winter,
and, tired and sick at sou