RILEY— NEWSPAPER CORRESPONDENT. 155 



know him in his unofficial character. He explains this curious thing by saying that 

 hjs employers sent him to Washington to write facts, not fancy, and that several 

 times he has come near losing his situation by inserting humorous remarks which, 

 not being looked for at headquarters, and consequently not understood, were 

 thought to be dark and bloody speeches intended to convey signals and warnings 

 to murderous secret societies, or something of that kind, and so were scratched out 

 with a shiver and a prayer and cast into the stove. Riley says that sometimes he is 

 so afflicted with a yearning to write a sparkling and absorbingly readable letter 

 that he simply cannot resist it, and so he goes to his den and revels in the delight 

 of untramelled scribbling ; and then, with suffering such a? only a mother can know, 

 he destroys the pretty children of his fancy and reduces his letter to the required 

 dismal accuracy. Having seen Riley do this very thing more than once, I know 

 whereof I speak. Often I have laughed with him over a happy passage, and grieved 

 to see him plough his pen through it. He would say, " I had to write that or die ; 

 and I've got to scratch it out or starve. They wouldn't stand it, you know." 



I think Riley is about the most entertaining company I ever saw. We lodged 

 together in many places in Washington during the winter of '67-8, moving comfort- 

 ably from place to place, and attracting attention by paying our board — a course 

 which cannot fail to make a person conspicuous in Washington. Riley would tell 

 all about his trip to California in the early days, by way of the Isthmus and the 

 San Juan river; and about his baking bread in San Francisco to gain a living, and 

 setting up ten-pins, and practising law, and opening oysters, and delivering lectures, 

 and teaching French, and tending bar, and reporting for the newspapers, and 

 keeping dancing-schools, and interpreting Chinese in the courts — which latter was 

 lucrative, and Riley was doing handsomely and laying up a little money when 

 people began to find fault because his translations were too "free," a thing for 

 which Riley considered he ought not to be held responsible, since he did not know 

 a word of the Chinese tongue, and only adopted interpreting as means of gaining 

 an honest livelihood. Through the machinations of enemies he was removed 

 from the position of official interpreter, and a man put in his place who was familiar 

 with the Chinese language, but did not know any English. And Riley used to tell 

 about publishing a newspaper up in what is Alaska now, but was only an iceberg 



