a good opportunity came.

In fact, the only one of the original miners who accepted Jack's
invitation was Lawrence Peabody.

"Step in, stranger, and have a drink!" said Jack, a little dubiously,
having met with such poor luck heretofore.

The young Bostonian paused. He was not a drinker at home, but in his
discontent and disappointment he was tempted.

"My dear sir, you are very polite," he said.

"I hope you ain't one of them temperance sneaks," said Jack, his brow
clouding in anticipation of a refusal.

"I assure you I am not," Peabody hastened to say. "I have participated
in convivial scenes more than once in Boston."

"I don't understand college talk," said Jack; "but if you want a glass
of prime whiskey, just say the word."

"I don't care if I do," said Peabody, following his new friend into the
saloon.

The draught of prime whiskey scorched his throat as he swallowed it
down, but it was followed by a sense of exhilaration, and Peabody's
tongue was loosened.

"You're a gentleman!" said Missouri Jack. "You ain't like them fellows
you're with. They're sneaks."

"Really, you compliment me, Mr.--, what may I call your name?"

"Missouri Jack--that's the peg I hang on to."

"My dear Mr. Jack, I am glad to know you. You are really quite an
accession to our settlement."

"Well, if I ain't, my saloon is. How you've managed to live so long
without liquor beats me. Why, it ain't civilized."

"It _was_ pretty dull," admitted Peabody.

"No life, no amusement; for all the world like a parcel of Methodists.
What luck have you met with, stranger?"

"Beastly luck!" answered Peabody. "I tell you, Mr. Jack, California's a
fraud. Many a time I've regretted leaving Boston, where I lived in
style, and moved in the first circles, for such a place as this.
Positively, Mr. Jack, I feel like a tramp, and I'm afraid I look like
one. If my fashionable friends could see me now, they wouldn't know me."

"I ain't got no fashionable friends, and I don't want any," growled
Missouri Jack, spitting on the floor. "What I want is, to meet
gentlemen that ain't afraid to drink like gentlemen. I say, stranger,
you'd better leave them Methodist fellers, and join our gang."

"Thank you, Mr. Jack, you're very kind, and I'll think of it," said
Peabody, diplomatically. Though a little exhilarated, he was not quite
blind to the character of the man with whom he was fraternizing, and had
too much real refinement to enjoy his coarseness.