he mad bull into action.

"I wouldn't give a d----n for the whole d----d State!" roared Mr.
Couldock, while his daughter pushed his hair behind his ears, and mildly
said: "Pa's always so emphatic about California."

"Yes!" shouted the old man, "and so would you be if you wore breeches
and dared to speak the truth! You see," he went on, "no one ever gave me
even a hint, and it was just my cursed luck to go overland, risking my
own d----n skin and Eliza's too, and it seems that those God-forsaken
duffers look upon anyone coming to them by the overland route as a sort
of outcast tramp. In fact, that's entering by the back-kitchen door to
San Francisco. You ought to go by sea, and come in at the front door of
their blasted, stuck-up little city if you're to put any of their money
in your purse or be allowed to keep any of your own."

One morning we girls were boasting among ourselves of our abilities as
packers. Hattie, my room-mate, thought she could pack a trunk the
quickest, while I claimed I could pack one with the least injury to the
contents. Miss Couldock, hearing us, exclaimed, laughingly: "Oh, girls,
poor pa could give you all points at that work, while his manner of
_un_packing is so original, so swift, and so thorough, I think I should
explain it to you. First, I must tell you, that that slight bow to pa's
legs is an annoyance to him on every occasion of life, save that of
unpacking his trunks, then it is of great convenience. You see, the
trunks are brought up and dumped in the room. They don't have any locks,
because 'poor pa,' always losing the keys, has to kick the locks off
during the first week that he owns them. Next they are unstrapped and
opened, then pa yanks off the top spread from the bed and lays it open on
the middle of the floor; then he takes his place before the first trunk,
straddles his feet well apart (see, now, how useful that bow becomes),
and fires every single garment the trunk contains between his legs and
on to the quilt. Having emptied the trunks with lightning swiftness, he
claps down their covers for the rest of the week. Whenever he wants
anything for the theatre, he straddles the pile on the quilt, and paws it
wildly, but rapidly over, pulling out a shoulder-cape here, a doublet
yonder, one boot from the top and its mate from the bottom--all these he
pitches into the theatre-basket, and is happy for _that_ day. When the
week is over, pa dumps into the nearest trunk all it will hold