The Comstock Club. Goodwin Charles Carroll

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      Or, in round numbers, eighty dollars per capita for us all. I settled my account at the store, amounting to $32.60, which leaves $47.40 as my proportion of the balance. Here is the money."

      This was like Brewster. Some of the others settled and a part begged-off until next pay-day.

      The next question was about the cooking. After a brief debate it was determined that all would join in getting up the first supper. So one rushed to a convenient butcher shop and soon returned with a basket full of porter house steaks, sweetbreads and lamb chops; another prepared the potatoes and put them in the oven; another attended to the fire; another to setting the table. Brewster was delegated to make the coffee. To Corrigan was ascribed the task of cooking the meats, while Miller volunteered to make some biscuits that would "touch their hearts."

      He mixed the ingredients in the usual way and thoroughly kneaded the dough. He then, with the big portion of a whisky bottle for a rolling-pin, rolled the dough out about a fourth of an inch thick. He then touched it gently all over with half melted butter; rolled the thin sheet into a large roll; then with the bottle reduced this again to the required thickness for biscuits, and, with a tumbler, cut them out. His biscuit trick he had learned from an old Hungarian, who, for a couple of seasons, had been his mining partner. It is an art which many a fine lady would be glad to know. The result is a biscuit which melts like cream in the mouth – like a fair woman's smile on a hungry eye. Corrigan had his sweetbreads frying, and when the biscuits were put in the oven, the steak and chops were put on to broil. The steak had been salted and peppered – miner's fashion – and over it slices of bacon, cut thin as wafers, had been laid. The bacon, under the heat, shriveled up and rolled off into the fire, but not until the flavor had been given to the steak. One of the miners had opened a couple of cans of preserved pine-apples; the coffee was hot, the meats and the biscuits were ready, and so the simple supper was served. Harding had placed the chairs; Brewster's was at the head of the table.

      Corrigan waited until all the others had taken their seats at the table; then, with a glass in his hand and a demijohn thrown over his right elbow, he stepped forward and said:

      "To didicate the house, and also as a medicine, I prescribe for aitch patient forty drops."

      Each took his medicine resignedly, and as the last one returned the glass, Corrigan added: "It appears to me I am not faling ony too well meself," and either as a remedy or preventive, he took some of the medicine.

      The supper was ravenously swallowed by the men, who for months had eaten nothing but miners' boarding-house fare. With one voice they declared that it was the first real meal they had eaten for weeks, and over their coffee they drank long life to housekeeping and confusion to boarding-houses.

      When the supper was over and the things put away, the pipes were lighted. By this time the shadow of Mount Davidson around them had melted into the gloom of the night, and for the first time in months these men settled themselves down to spend an evening at home. It was a new experience.

      "It is just splendid," cried Wright. "No beer, no billiards, no painted nymphs, no chance for a row. We have been sorry fools for months – for years, for that matter – or we would have opened business at this stand long ago."

      "We have, indeed," said Ashley. "To-night we make a new departure. What shall we call our mess?"

      Many names were suggested, but finally "The Comstock Club" was proposed and nominated by acclamation.

      It was agreed, too, that no other members, except honorary members, should be admitted, and no politics talked. Then the conversation became general, and later, confidential; and each member of the Club uncovered a little his heart and his hopes.

      Miller meant, so soon as he "made a little stake," to go down to San Francisco and assault the stock sharps right in their Pine and California street dens. He believed he had discovered the rule which could reduce stock speculation to an exact science, and he was anxious for the opportunity which a little capital would afford, "to show those sharpers at the Bay a trick or two, which they had never yet 'dropped on.'" He added, patronizingly: "I will loan you all so much money, by and by, that each of you will have enough to start a bank."

      "I shtarted a bank alridy, all be mesilf, night before last," said Corrigan.

      "What kind of a bank was it, Barney?" asked Harding.

      "One of King Pharo's. I put a twenty-dollar pace upon the Quane; that shtarted the bank. The chap on the other side of the table commenced to pay out the pictures, and the Quane – "

      "Well, what of the Queen, Barney?" asked Carlin.

      "She fill down be the side of the sardane box, and the chap raked in me double agle."

      "How do you like that style of banking, Barney?" asked Ashley.

      "Oh! Its mighty plisant and enthertainin', of course; the business sames to be thransacted with a grate dale of promptness and dispatch; the only drawback seems to be that the rates of ixchange are purty high."

      Tom Carlin knew of a great farm, a store, a flour mill, and a hazel-eyed girl back in Illinois. He coveted them all, but was determined to possess the girl anyway.

      After a little persuasion, he showed her picture to the Club. They all praised it warmly, and Corrigan declared she was a daisy. In a neat hand on the bottom of the picture was written: "With love, Susie Richards." Carlin always referred to her as "Susie Dick."

      Harding, upon being rallied, explained that his father came with the Argonauts to the West; that he was brilliant, but over-generous; that he had lived fast and with his purse open to every one, and had died while yet in his prime, leaving an encumbered estate, which must be cleared of its indebtedness, that no stain might rest upon the name of Harding. There was a gleam in the dark eyes, and a ring to the voice of the boy as he spoke, that kindled the admiration of the Club, and when he ceased speaking, Miller reached out and shook his hand, saying: "You should have the money, my boy!"

      Back in Massachusetts, Brewster had met with a whole train of misfortunes; his property had become involved; his wife had died – his voice lowered and grew husky when mentioning this – he had two little girls, Mable and Mildred. He had kept his children at school and paid their way despite the iron fortune that had hedged him about, and he was working to shield them from all the sorrows possible, without the aid of the Saint who had gone to heaven. The Club was silent for a moment, when the strong man added, solemnly, and as if to himself: "Who knows that she does not help us still?"

      In his youth, Brewster acquired the trade of an engineer. At this time, as we learned before, he was running a power drill in the Bullion. He was a great reader and was thorough on many subjects.

      Wright had his eyes on a stock range in California, where the land was cheap, the pasturage fine, the water abundant, and where, with the land and a few head of stock for a beginning, a man would in a few years be too rich to count his money. He had been accustomed to stock, when a boy, in Missouri, and was sure that there was more fun in chasing a wild steer with a good mustang, than finding the СКАЧАТЬ