the morning of Saturday, August
26, 1865, Master Charles Summerton, aged five years, disappeared
mysteriously from his paternal residence on Folsom Street, San
Francisco. At twenty-five minutes past nine he had been observed, by the
butcher, amusing himself by going through that popular youthful
exercise known as "turning the crab," a feat in which he was singularly
proficient. At a court of inquiry summarily held in the back parlor at
10.15, Bridget, cook, deposed to have detected him at twenty minutes
past nine, in the felonious abstraction of sugar from the pantry, which,
by the same token, had she known what was a-comin', she'd have never
previnted. Patsey, a shrill-voiced youth from a neighboring alley,
testified to have seen "Chowley" at half past nine, in front of the
butcher's shop round the corner, but as this young gentleman chose
to throw out the gratuitous belief that the missing child had been
converted into sausages by the butcher, his testimony was received with
some caution by the female portion of the court, and with downright
scorn and contumely by its masculine members. But whatever might have
been the hour of his departure, it was certain that from half past ten
A. M. until nine P. M., when he was brought home by a policeman, Charles
Summerton was missing. Being naturally of a reticent disposition, he has
since resisted, with but one exception, any attempt to wrest from him a
statement of his whereabouts during that period. That exception has been
myself. He has related to me the following in the strictest confidence.

His intention on leaving the door-steps of his dwelling was to proceed
without delay to Van Dieman's Land, by way of Second and Market streets.
This project was subsequently modified so far as to permit a visit
to Otaheite, where Captain Cook was killed. The outfit for his voyage
consisted of two car-tickets, five cents in silver, a fishing-line,
the brass capping of a spool of cotton, which, in his eyes, bore some
resemblance to metallic currency, and a Sunday-school library ticket.
His garments, admirably adapted to the exigencies of any climate, were
severally a straw hat with a pink ribbon, a striped shirt, over which
a pair of trousers, uncommonly wide in comparison to their length,
were buttoned, striped balmoral stockings, which gave his youthful legs
something of the appearance of wintergreen candy, and copper-toed shoes
with iron heels, capable of striking fire from any flagst