Six months ago, when I was recalling early days in San Francisco, I broke off at a place where I was about to tell about Captain Osborn’s odd adventure at the “WhatⒶtextual note Cheer,”Ⓔexplanatory note or perhaps it was at another cheap feeding-place—the “Miners’ Restaurant.” It was a place where one could get good food on the cheapest possible termsⒺexplanatory note, and its popularity was great among the multitudes whose purses were light. It was a good place to go toⒶtextual note to observe mixed humanity. Captain Osborn and Bret Harte went there one day and took a meal, and in the course of it Osborn fished up an interesting reminiscence of a dozen years before and told about it. It was to this effect:

HeⒶtextual note was a midshipman in the navy when the Californian gold craze burst upon the world and set it wild with excitement. His ship made the long journey around the Horn and was approaching her goal, the Golden Gate, when an accidentⒶtextual note happened.

“It happened to me,” said Osborn.Ⓐtextual note “I fell overboard. There was a heavy sea running, but no one was much alarmed about me, because we had on board a newly patented life-saving device which was believed to be competent to rescue anything that could fall overboard, from a midshipman to an anchor. Ours was the only ship that had this device; we were very proud of it, and had been anxiousⒶtextual note to give its powers a practical test. This thing was lashed to the garboard-strake of the main-to’gallant mizzen-yard amidships,* and there was nothing to do but cut the lashings and heave it over; it would do the rest. The cry of ‘Man overboard!’ brought the whole ship’s company on deck. Instantly the lashings were cut and the machine flung joyously over. Damnation,Ⓐtextual note it went to the bottom like an anvil!Ⓐtextual note By the time that the ship was brought toⒶtextual note and a boat manned, I was become but a bobbing speck on the wavesⒶtextual note half a mile astern,Ⓐtextual note and losing my strength very fast; but by good luck there was a common seaman on board who had practical ideas in his head and hadn’tⒶtextual note waited to see what the patent machine was going to do, but had run aft and sprung over after me the moment the alarm was cried through the ship. I had a good deal of a start

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*Can this be correct? I think there must be some mistake. M.T.Ⓐtextual note [begin page 325] of him, and the seas made his progress slow and difficult, but he stuck to his work and fought his way to me,Ⓐtextual note and just in the nick of time he putⒶtextual note his saving arms about me when I was about to go down. He held me up until the boat reached us and rescued us. By that time I was unconscious, and I was still unconscious when we arrived at the ship. A dangerous fever followed, and I was delirious for three days; then I came to myself and at once inquired for my benefactor, of course. He was gone. We were lying at anchor in the Bay and every man had desertedⒶtextual note to the gold-mines except the commissioned officers. I found out nothing about my benefactor but his name—Burton Sanders—a name which I have held in grateful memory ever since. Every time I have been on the Coast, these twelve or thirteen years, I have tried to get track of him, but have never succeeded. I wish I could find him and make him understand that his brave act has never been forgotten by me. Harte, I would rather see him and take him by the hand than any other man on the planet.”

At this stage or a little laterⒶtextual note there was an interruption. A waiter near-byⒶtextual note said to another waiter, pointing,

“Take a look at that tramp that’s coming in. Ain’t that the one that bilked the house, last week, out of ten cents?”

“I believe it is. Let him alone—don’t pay any attention to him; wait till we can get a good look at him.”

The tramp approached timidly and hesitatingly, with the air of one unsure and apprehensive. The waiters watched him furtively. When he was passing behind Harte’s chair one of them said,

“He’s the one!Ⓐtextual note”—and they pounced upon him and proposed to turn him over to the police as a bilk. He begged piteously. He confessed his guilt, but said he had been driven to his crime by necessity—that when he had eaten the plate of beans and slipped out without paying for it, it was because he was starving, and hadn’t the ten cents to pay for it with. But the waiters would listen to no explanations, no palliations; he must be placed in custody. He brushed his hand across his eyes and said meekly that he would submit, being friendless. Each waiter took him by an arm and faced him about to conduct him away. Then his melancholy eyes fell upon Captain Osborn, and a light of glad and eager recognition flashed from them. He said,

“Weren’t you a midshipman once, sir, in the old Lancaster?”Ⓐtextual note

“Yes,” said Osborn. “Why?”

“Didn’t you fall overboard?”

“Yes, I did. How do you come to know about it?”Ⓐtextual note

“Wasn’t there a new patent machine aboard, and didn’t they throw it over to save you?”

“WhyⒶtextual note yes,” said Osborn, laughing gently, “but it didn’t do it.”

“NoⒶtextual note sir, it was a sailor that done it.”

“It certainly was. Look here, my man, you are getting distinctly interesting. Were you of our crew?”

“YesⒶtextual note sir, I was.”

“I reckon you may beⒶtextual note right. You do certainly know a good deal about that incident. What is your name?”

[begin page 326]

“Burton Sanders.”

The Captain sprang up, excited, and said,

“Give me your hand!Ⓐtextual note Give me both your hands!Ⓐtextual note I’d rather shake them than inherit a fortune!Ⓐtextual note”—and then he cried to the waiters, “LetⒶtextual note him go!Ⓐtextual note—take your hands off!Ⓐtextual note He is my guest, and can have anything and everything this house is able to furnish. I am responsible.”

There was a love-feast,Ⓐtextual note then. Captain Osborn ordered it regardless of expense, and he and Harte sat there and listened while the man told stirring adventures of his life and fed himself up to the eyebrowsⒶtextual note. Then Osborn wanted to be benefactor in his turn, and pay back some of his debt. The man said it could all be paid with ten dollars—that it had been so long since he had owned that amount of money that it would seem a fortune to him, and he should be grateful beyond words if the Captain could spare him that amount. The Captain spared him ten broad twenty-dollar gold pieces, and made him take them in spite of his modest protestations;Ⓐtextual note and gave him his address and said he must never fail to give him notice when he needed grateful service.

Several months later Harte stumbled upon the man in the street. He was most comfortably drunk, and pleasant and chatty. Harte remarked upon the splendidly and movingly dramatic incident of the restaurant, and said, “How curious and fortunate and happy and interesting it was that you two should come together, after that long separation, and at exactly the right moment to save you from disaster and turn your defeat by the waiters into a victory. A preacher could make a great sermon out of that, for it does look as if the hand of Providence was in it.”

The hero’s face assumed a sweetly genial expression, and he said,

“Well now, it wasn’t Providence this time. I was running the arrangements myself.”

“How do you mean?”

“Oh, I hadn’t ever seen the gentleman before. I was at the next table, with my back to you the whole time he was telling about it. I saw my chance, and slipped out and fetched the two waiters with me and offered to give them a commission out of what I could get out of the Captain if they would do a quarrel act with me and give me an opening. SoⒶtextual note then, after a minute or two I straggled back, and you know the rest of it as well as I do.”Ⓐtextual note