even cents, the absolute remainder of his
capital after such perfection.

It was not until 1868 that he appeared to have finally succeeded in
going home. He left us by the overland route,--a route which he declared
would give great opportunity for the discovery of undeveloped resources.
His last letter was dated Virginia City. He was absent three years. At
the close of a very hot day in midsummer, he alighted from the Wingdam
stage, with hair and beard powdered with dust and age. There was a
certain shyness about his greeting, quite different from his usual
frank volubility, that did not, however, impress us as any accession
of character. For some days he was reserved regarding his recent visit,
contenting himself with asserting, with more or less aggressiveness,
that he had "always said he was going home, and now he had been there."
Later he grew more communicative, and spoke freely and critically of
the manners and customs of New York and Boston, commented on the social
changes in the years of his absence, and, I remember, was very hard upon
what he deemed the follies incidental to a high state of civilization.
Still later he darkly alluded to the moral laxity of the higher planes
of Eastern society; but it was not long before he completely tore away
the veil, and revealed the naked wickedness of New York social life in a
way I even now shudder to recall. Vinous intoxication, it appeared, was
a common habit of the first ladies of the city. Immoralities which he
scarcely dared name were daily practised by the refined of both sexes.
Niggardliness and greed were the common vices of the rich. "I have
always asserted," he continued, "that corruption must exist where luxury
and riches are rampant, and capital is not used to develop the natural
resources of the country. Thank you--I will take mine without sugar."
It is possible that some of these painful details crept into the local
journals. I remember an editorial in "The Monte Flat Monitor," entitled
"The Effete East," in which the fatal decadence of New York and New
England was elaborately stated, and California offered as a means of
natural salvation. "Perhaps," said "The Monitor," "we might add that
Calaveras County offers superior inducements to the Eastern visitor with
capital."

Later he spoke of his family. The daughter he had left a child had grown
into beautiful womanhood. The son was already taller and larger than his
father; and, in a playful trial of strength