BREAKING A CONTRACT. 
I 9 
practise the art in Denver, then a thriving mining 
camp, he agreed to give her the needful lessons 
at ten dollars apiece, beginning the next day. 
She came promptly at the appointed hour, full 
of the most enthusiastic anticipations, only to be 
told he had changed his mind “ because she was 
a woman ! ” 
As he expressed it : 
“ Vimin is besser as men mit den hands in 
shmall verks. Ven you know dis pisness you 
makes de pirds and peasts so quicker as I ; you 
leave me no more verk at all ! Es is besser fur 
* 
me I keeps vat I knows mit mineself ! ” 
It was in vain she assured him she wished to 
learn only for her own gratification ; he in- 
sisted it “ vas besser ” for him “ to keep vat he 
knew mit” himself! Prophetic Teuton ! 
Two weeks after this — a court of squatters 
having in the meantime decided that he was an 
unwarranted intruder upon those premises ; a 
verdict which he treated with sublime indifference 
— he had an occasion given him to remember 
his would-be-scholar by seeing his assertion of 
“ violins’ ” superiority in some things verified. 
Possession in those days was ten points in the 
law. Mrs. Maxwell had no idea of a surrender, 
and keeping watch of the disputed cabin from a 
neighboring ranch, made a raid upon it one day 
during his absence. Withdrawing the staple, 
