The Comstock Club. C. C. Goodwin
not unhappy. The air is still filled with the echoes of the songs that they sung; their bright sayings have gone into the traditions; the impression which they made upon the world is a monument which will tell of their achievements, record their sturdy virtues and exalt their glorified names."
As the Colonel ceased and some one else was called upon to talk, Strong motioned to Savage and both noiselessly sought some vacant seats in the rear of the hall.
Colonel Savage was another genius. He was a young lawyer in New York when the first news of gold discoveries in California was carried to that city. He, with a hundred others, chartered a bark that was lying idle in the harbor, had her fitted up and loaded, and in her made a seven months' voyage around the Cape to San Francisco. He was the most versatile of the Argonauts. Every mood of poor human nature found a response in him. At a funeral he shamed the mourners by the sadness of his face; at a festival he added a sparkle to the wines; he could convulse a saloon with a story; he could read a burial service with a pathos that stirred every heart, and so his life ran on until when we find him he had been several years a leading member of a brighter bar than ever before was seen in a town of the size of Virginia City.
He was a tall, handsome man, his face was classical, and all his bearing, even when all unbent, was that of a high-born, self-contained and self-respecting man.
Strong, on the other hand, was of shorter statue; his face was the perfect picture of mirthfulness; there was a wonderful magnetism in his smile and hand-clasp; but when in repose a close look at his face revealed, below the mirthfulness, that calm which is the close attendant upon conscious power.
As they reached their seats Alex spoke:
"You were awfully good to-night, Colonel."
"Of course; I always am. But what has awakened your appreciation to-night?"
"I thought my speech was horrible."
"For once it would require a brave man to doubt your judgment," said the Colonel, sententiously.
"I was sure of it until I heard you speak; then I recovered my self-respect, believing that, by comparison, my speech would ring in the memories of the listeners, like a psalm."
"You mean Sam, the town-crier and bootblack. His brain is a little weak, but his lungs are superb."
"I believe you are jealous of his voice, Colonel. But sit down: I want to tell you about the most unregenerate soul on earth."
"Proceed, Alex, only do not forget that under the merciful statutes of the State of Nevada no man is obliged to make statements which will criminate himself."
"What a comfort that knowledge must be to you."
"It often is. My heart is full of sympathy for the unfortunate, and more than once have I seen eyes grow bright when I have given that information to a client."
"The study of that branch of law must have had a peculiar fascination to you."
"Indeed, it did, Alex. At every point where the law draws the shield of its mercy around the accused, in thought it seemed made for one or another of my friends, and, mentally, I found myself defending one after the other of them."
"Did you, at the same time, keep in thought the fact that in an emergency the law permits a man to plead his own cause?"
"Never, on my honor. In those days my life was circumspect, even as it now is, and my associates—not as now—were so genteel that there was no danger of any suspicion attaching to me, because of the people I was daily seen with."
"That was good for you, but what sort of reputations did your associates have?" asked Alex.
"They went on from glory to glory. One became a conductor on a railroad, and in four years, at a salary of one hundred dollars per month, retired rich. One became a bank cashier, and three years later, through the advice of his physicians, settled in the soft climate of Venice, with which country we have no extradition treaty. Another one is a broker here in this city, and I am told, is doing so well that he hopes next year to be superintendent of a mine."
"Why have you not succeeded better, Colonel, financially?"
"I am too honest. Every day I stop law suits which I ought to permit to go on. Every day I do work for nothing which I ought to charge for. I tell you, Alex, I would sooner be right than be President."
"I cannot, just now, recall any one who knows you, Colonel, who does not feel the same way about you."
"That is because the most of my friends are dull, men, like yourself. But how prospers that newspaper?"
"It is the same old, steady grind," replied Alex, thoughtfully. "I saw a blind horse working in a whim yesterday. As he went round and round, there seemed on his face a look of anxiety to find out how much longer that road of his was, and I said to him, compassionately: 'Old Spavin, you know something of what it is to work on a daily paper.' I went to the shaft and watched the buckets as they came up, and there was only one bucket of ore to ten buckets of waste. Then I went back to the horse and said to him: 'You do not know the fact, you blissfully ignorant old brute, but your work is mightily like ours, one bucket of ore to ten of waste.'"
"How would you like to have me write an editorial for your paper?"
"I should be most grateful," was the reply.
"On what theme?"
"Oh, you might make your own selection."
"How would you like an editorial on——scoundrels?"
"It would, with your experience, be truthfully written, doubtless, but Colonel, it is only now and then in good taste for a man to supply the daily journals with his own autobiography."
"How modest you are. You did not forget that, despite the impersonality of journalism, you would have the credit of the article."
"No, I was afraid of that credit, and I am poor enough now, Colonel; but really, that credit does not count. If, for five days in the week, I make newspapers, which my judgment tells me are passably good, it appears to me the only use that is made of them is for servant girls to kindle fires with, and do up their bangs in: but if, on the sixth day, my heart is heavy and my brain thick, and the paper next morning is poor, it seems to me that everybody in the camp looks curiously at me, as if to ascertain for a certainty, whether or no, I am in the early stages of brain softening."
"A reasonable suspicion, I fancy, Alex; but what do you think of your brother editors of this coast as men and writers?"
"Most of them are good fellows, and bright writers. If you knew under what conditions some of them work, you would take off your hat every time you met them."
"To save my hat?" queried the Colonel. "But whom do you consider the foremost editor of the coast?"
"There is no such person. Men with single thoughts and purposes, are, as a rule, the men who make marks in this world. For instance, just now, the single purpose of James G. Fair, is to make money through mining. Hence, he is a great miner, and he, now and then, I am told, manages to save a few dollars in the business. The dream of C. P. Huntington is to make money through railroads, so he builds roads, that he may collect more fares and freights, and he collects more fares and freights so that he may build more roads, and I believe, all in all, that he is the ablest, if not the coldest and most pitiless, railroad man in the world. The ruling thought of Andy Barlow is to be a fighter, and he can draw and shoot in the space of a lightning's flash. The dream of George Washington, he having no children, was to create and adopt a nation which should at once be strong and free, and the result is, his grave is a shrine. But, as the eight notes of the scale, in their combinations, fill the world with music—or with discords, so the work of an editor covers all the subjects on which men have ever thought, or ever will think, and the best that any one editor can do is to handle a few subjects well. Among our coast editors there is one with more marked characteristics, more flashes of genius, in certain directions, more contradictions and more pluck than any other one possesses.
"That one is Henry Mighels, of Carson.