DICK BAKER'S CAT.

BY MARK TWAIN.

ONE of my comrades there-another of those victims of eighteen years of unrequited toil and blighted hopes-was one of the gentlest spirits that ever bore its patient cross in a weary

exile grave and simple Dick Baker, pocket-miner of Dead House Gulch. He was forty-six, gray as a rat, earnest, thoughtful, slenderly educated, slouchily dressed and clay-soiled, but his heart was finer metal than any gold his shovel ever brought to light-than any, indeed, that ever was mined or minted.

Whenever he was out of luck and a little down-hearted, he would fall to mourning over the loss of a wonderful cat he used to own (for where women and children are not, men of kindly impulses take up with pets, for they must love something). And he always spoke of the strange sagacity of that cat with the air of a man who believed in his secret heart that there was something human about it may be even supernatural.

SHOVING FOR HOME.

I heard him talk

"Gentlemen, I used to have a cat here by the name of Tom Quartz, which you'd a took an interest in I reckon-most any body would. I had him here eight year-and he was the remarkablest cat I ever see. He was a large gray one of the Tom specie, an' he had more hard, natchral sense than any man in this camp--'n' a power of dignity-he wouldn't let the Gov'ner of Californy be familiar with him. He never ketched a rat in his

life-'peared to be above it. He never cared for nothing but mining. He knowed more about mining, that cat did, than any man I ever, ever see. You couldn't tell him noth'n' 'bout placer diggin's 'n' as for pocket-mining, why he was just born for it. He would dig out after me an' Jim when we went over the hills prospect'n', and he would trot along behind us for as much as five mile, if we went so fur. An' he had the best judgment about mining ground-why you never see anything like it. When we went to work, he'd scatter a glance around, 'n' if he didn't think much of the indications, he would give a look as much to say, 'Well, I'll have to get you to excuse me,' 'n' without another word he'd hyste his nose into the air 'n' shove for home. But if the ground suited him, he would lay low 'n' keep dark till the first pan was washed, 'n' then he would sidle up 'n' take a look, an' if there was about six or seven grains of gold he was satisfied he didn't want no better prospect 'n' that 'n' then he would lay down on our coats and snore

like a steamboat till we'd struck the pocket, an' then get up 'n' superintend. He was nearly lightnin' on superintending.

"Well, bye an' bye, up comes this yer quartz excite

GOING UP.

ment. Everybody was into it-everybody was pick'n' 'n' blast'n' instead of shovelin' dirt on the hill-side-everybody was put'n' down a shaft instead of scrapin' the surface. Noth'n' would do Jim but we must tackle the ledges, too, 'n' so we did. We commenced put'n' down a shaft, 'n' Tom Quartz he begin to wonder what in the dickens it was all about. He hadn't ever seen any mining like that before, 'n' he was all upset, as you

may say he couldn't come to a right understanding of it no way -it was too many for him. He was down on it, too, you bet you-he was down on it powerful-'n' always appeared to consider it the cussed est foolishness out. But that cat, you know, was always agin new-fangled arrangements-somehow he never could abide 'em. You know how it is with old habits. But bye an' bye Tom Quartz begin to git sort of reconciled a little, though he never could altogether understand that eternal sinkin' of a shaft an' never pannin' out anything. At last he got to comin' down in the shaft hisself, to try to cipher it out. An' when he'd git the blues, 'n' feel kind o' scruffy, 'n' aggravated 'n' disgusted— knowin', as he did, that the bills was runnin' up all the time an' we warn't makin' a cent-he would curl up on a gunny sack in the corner an' go to sleep. Well, one day when the shaft was down about eight foot, the rock got so hard that we had to put in a blast—the first blast'n' we'd ever done since Tom Quartz was born. An' then we lit the fuse 'n' clumb out 'n' got off 'bout fifty yards-'n' forgot 'n' left Tom Quartz sound asleep on the gunny sack. In 'bout a minute we seen a puff of smoke bust up out of the hole, 'n' then everything let go with an awful crash, 'n' about four million ton of rocks 'n' dirt 'n' smoke 'n' splinters shot up 'bout a mile an' a half into the air, an' by George, right in the dead centre of it was old Tom Quartz a goin' end over end, an' a snortin' an' a sneez'n', an' a clawin' an' a reachin' for things like all possessed. But it warn't no use, you know, it warn't no use. An' that was the last we see of him for about two minutes 'n' a half, an' then all of a sudden it begin to rain rocks and rubbage, an' directly he come down ker-whop about ten foot off f'm where we stood. Well, I reckon he was p'raps the orneriest lookin' beast you ever see. One ear was sot back on his neck, 'n' his tail was stove up, 'n' his eye-winkers was swinged off, 'n' he was all blacked up with powder an' smoke, an' all sloppy with mud 'n' slush f'm one end to the other. Well, sir, it warn't no use to try to apologize--we couldn't say a word. He took a sort of a disgusted look at hisself, 'n' then he looked at us-an' it was just exactly the same as if he had said—'Gents, maybe you think it's smart to take advantage of a cat that 'ain't had no experience of quartz minin', but I think different'—an' then he turned on his heel 'n' marched off home without ever saying another word.

"That was jest his style. An' maybe you won't believe it, but after that you never see a cat so prejudiced agin quartz mining as what he was. An' bye an' bye when he did get to goin' down in the shaft agin, you'd 'a been astonished at his sagacity. The minute we'd tetch off a blast 'n' the fuse'd begin to sizzle, he'd give a look as much as to say: 'Well, I'll have to git you to excuse me,' an' it was surpris'n' the way he'd shin out of that hole 'n' go f'r a tree. Sagacity? It ain't no name for it. 'Twas inspiration!"

I said, "Well, Mr. Baker, his prejudice against quartz-mining was remarkable, considering how he came by it. Couldn't you ever cure him of it?"

"Cure him! No! When Tom Quartz was sot once, he was always sot-and you might a blowed him up as much as three million times, 'n' you'd never a broken him of his cussed prejudice agin quartz mining."

AVOIDING eccentricity: "No," said the bank cashier, "I didn't need the money. I wasn't speculating. I had no necessity for stealing it. But, hang it, I didn't want to be called eccentric." -Boston Post.

THE HAUNTED ROOM.

R. J. BURDETTE.

ONCE, in the dead heart of the pitiless winter, I had drawn my good two-handed Lecture with the Terrible Name, and was smiting all the coasts of Pennsylvania with it, sparing neither (pronounced nyther) young nor old, and wearing at my belt the scalps of many a pale-face audience. One night I reached Erie the pleasant, just as the clock in the Lord Mayor's castle struck twenty-one. It was bitter, biting, stinging cold, and there was no ambulance at the station, while there was a good hotel there. I went in and registered, and a man of commanding presence, tailor-built clothes and a brown beard of most refined culture, followed me, and under my plebeian scrawl, made the register luminous with his patrician cognomen. I stood a little in awe of this majestic creature, and when in a deep, bass, commanding

voice he ordered a room, I had a great mind-something I always carry with me when I travel-to go out and get him one. The gentlemanly and urbane night clerk, who also seemed to be deeply impressed-as is the habit of the night clerk-with the gentleman's responsible to any amount toot on sawmbel, said he was sorry, but he had but one vacant room, and it contained but one bed. "Still," he said, as became a man who was bound to stand for his house if it hadn't a bed in it, "it was a wide bed, very wide and quite long. Two gentlemen could sleep in it quite comfortably, and if." But the Commanding Being at my side said that was quite altogether out of the question entirely. Quite. He was sorry for the-here he looked at me, hesitated, but finally said-gentleman, but He couldn't share His room. with him. He was sorry for the-gentleman, and hoped he might find comfortable lodgings, but He couldn't permit him to occupy even a portion of His bed. Then the clerk begged pardon, and was sorry, and all that, but this other gentleman had registered

COMFORTABLY SETTLED.

first, and it was for him to say what disposition should be made of this lonely room and solitary bed. I hastened to assure the majestic being that it was all right; he was welcome to twothirds of the room, all of the looking-glass and one-half of the bed. "No," he said, very abruptly, "I will sit here by the stove and sleep in my chair. I thank you, sir, but I would not sleep with my own brother. I prefer a room to myself." I

meekly told him that I didn't know what kind of a man his brother was, but no doubt he did, and therefore I must conclude that he wasn't a fit man to sleep with. But his brother was out of the question, and if he wanted part of my couch, he might have it and welcome, and I would agree not to think of the brother. "No, sir," he said, "I will sleep in no man's bed." I said I wouldn't either, if I wasn't sleepy, but when I was sleepy, I didn't care; I'd sleep with the King of England or the President, and wouldn't care a cent who knew it.