308 CALIFORNIA AFTER THE DISCOVERY OF GOLD. 



fish, which he offers for sale ? He was one of the best Greek 

 and Latin scholars of his class in Yale College, and, subse- 

 quently, one of the most promising Members of our Bar. But 

 he exchanged his Blackstone for a pick, and, instead of pick- 

 ing fees out of his clients' pockets, he came here to pick gold 

 out of the mines ; but, the deuce was it, for whenever his 

 pick struck close upon a deposit, it was^ no longer there ; so 

 he exchanged his pick for a hook and line, and now angles for 

 pike, pickerel, and perch, and can describe each fish by some 

 apt line from Catulus. He would do well at his new pisca- 

 tory profession but for the gilded hook of the gambler. He 

 laughs at the trout for darting at a fictitious fly, and then chases 

 a bait himself equally fanciful and false. 



" But look again do you see that pulperia, with its gathered 

 groups of soldiers and sailors, poets and politicians, merchants 

 and mendicants, doctors and draymen, clerks and cobblers, 

 trappers and tinkers ? That little man who stands behind the 

 bar, and deals to each his dram of fire, was once a preacher, 

 and deemed almost a prophet, as he depicted the pangs of that 

 worm which dieth not, but now he has exchanged that worm 

 for another, but preserved his consistency, for his worm, too, 

 distilleth delirium and death. And that thick-set man who 

 stands in the midst of the crowd, with ruby countenance and 

 reveling eye, whose repartee sets the whole pulperia in a roar, 

 and who is now watching the liquor in his glass to see if it 

 stirreth itself aright, once lectured in the west on the tempta- 

 tions of those who tarry late at the wine ; but now his teeto- 

 talism covers all liquors as goodly gifts graciously bestowed. 

 But one brief year, and some dame quickly may describe his 

 pale exit, as that of his delirious prototype. ' I saw him 

 fumble with the sheets, and play with flowers, and smile upon 

 his fingers' ends.' 



