Explanatory Notes
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Apparatus Notes
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CHAPTER 46
[begin page 299]

CHAPTER 46

There were nabobs in those days—in the “flush times,” I mean. Every rich strike in the mines created one or two. I call to mind several of these. They were careless, easy-going fellows, as a general thing, and the community at large was as much benefited by their riches as they were themselves—possibly more, in some cases.

Two cousinsemendation, teamsters, did some hauling for a manemendation, and had to take a small segregated portion of a silver mine in lieu of three hundred dollarsemendation cash. They gave an outsider a third to open the mine, and they went on teaming. But not long. Ten months afterward

a nabob.
the mine was out of debt and paying each owner eight to ten thousand dollarsemendation a month—say a hundred thousand dollarsemendation a yearexplanatory note.emendation

One of the earliest nabobs that Nevada was delivered of wore six thousand dollars’emendation worth ofemendation diamonds in his bosom, and swore he was unhappy because he could notemendation spend his money as fast as he made it.emendation

Another Nevada nabob boasted an income that often reached sixteen thousand dollarsemendation a month; and he used to love to tell how he had worked in the very mine that yielded it, for five dollarsemendation a day, when heemendation first came to the country.emendation

The silver and sage-brush State has knowledge of another of these pets of fortune—lifted from actual poverty to affluence almost [begin page 300] in a single night—who was able to offer a hundred thousand dollarsemendation for a position of high official distinction, shortly afterward, and did offer it—but failed to get it, his politics not being as sound as his bank account.emendation

Then there was John Smith.emendation He was a good, honest, kind-hearted soulemendation, born andemendation reared in the lower ranks of life, and miraculously ignorant. He drove a team, and owned a small ranch—a ranch that paid himemendation a comfortable living, for although it yielded but little hay, what little it did yield was worth from two hundred and fiftyemendation to three hundred dollarsemendation in gold per ton in the market. Presently Smith traded a few acres of the ranch for a small undeveloped silver mine in Gold Hill. He opened the mine and built a little unpretending ten-stamp mill. Eighteen months afterward he retired from the hay businessemendation, for his mining income had reached a most comfortable figure. Some people said it was thirty thousand dollarsemendation a month, and others said it was sixty thousand dollarsemendation. Smith was very rich at any rate.emendation

And then he went to Europe and traveled. And when heemendation came back heemendation was never tired of telling about the fine hogs he had seen in England, and the gorgeous sheep he had seen in Spain, and the fine cattle he had noticed in the vicinity of Rome. He was full of the wondersemendation of the old world, and advised everybodyemendation to travel. He said a man never imagined what surprising things there were in the world till he had traveled.

One day, on board ship, the passengers made up a pool of five hundred dollarsemendation, which was to be the property of the man who should come nearest to guessing the run of the vessel for the next twenty-four hours. Next day, toward noon, the figures were all in the purser’s hands in sealed envelopsemendation. Smith was serene and happy, for he had been bribing the engineer. But another party won the prize! Smith said:emendation

“Here, that won’t do! He guessed two miles wider of the mark thanemendation I did.”

The purser said, “Mr. Smith, you missed it further than any man on board. We traveled two hundred and eight miles yesterday.”

Well,emendation sir,” said Smith, “that’s just where I’ve got you, for I guessed two hundred and nine. If you’ll look at my figgers again you’ll find a 2 and two 0’semendation, which stands for 200, don’t it?—and after [begin page 301] ’ememendation you’ll find a 9 (2009), which stands for two hundred and nine. I reckon I’ll take that money, if you pleaseexplanatory note.”emendation

The Gould & Curryemendation claim comprised twelve hundred feet, andemendation it all belonged originally to theemendation two men whose names it bears. Mr. Curry owned two-thirds of it—and he said that he sold it out for twenty-five hundred dollars, in cash, and an old plug horse that ate up his market value in hay and barley in seventeenemendation days by the watch. And he said that Gould sold out for a pair of second-hand government blankets and a bottle of whisky that killed nineemendation men in threeemendation hours, and thatemendation an unoffending stranger that smelt the cork was disabled for life. Four years afterward the mine thus disposed of was worth in the San Francisco market seven millionemendation six hundred thousand dollars in gold coinexplanatory note.

In the early days a poverty-stricken Mexican who lived in a cañon directlyemendation back of Virginia City, had a stream of water as large as a man’s wrist trickling from the hillside on his premises. The Ophir Company segregated a hundred feetemendation of their mine and tradedemendation it to him for the stream of water. The hundred feetemendation proved to be the richest part of the entire mine; four years after the swap, its market value (including its mill)emendation was one million five hundred thousand dollarsexplanatory note.emendation

An individual who owned twentyemendation feet in the Ophir mine before its great riches were revealed to men, traded it for a horse, and a very sorry-lookingemendation brute he was,emendation too. A year or so afterward, when Ophir stock went up to three thousand dollarsemendation a foot, this man, who had notemendation a cent, used to say he was the most startling example of magnificence and misery the world had ever seen—because he was able to ride a sixty-thousand-dollar horseexplanatory note—yet could not scrape up cash enough to buy a saddle, and was obliged to borrow one or ride barebackemendation. He said if fortune were to give him another sixty-thousand-dollaremendation horse it would ruin him.explanatory note emendation

A youth of nineteen, who was a telegraph operator in Virginia on a salary of a hundred dollars a month, and who, when he could not make out German names in the list of San Francisco steamer arrivals, used to ingeniously select and supply substitutes for them out of an old Berlin city directory, made himself rich by watching the mining telegramsexplanatory note that passed through his hands and buying and selling stocks accordingly, through a friend in San Francisco. [begin page 302] Once when a private dispatch was sent from Virginia announcing a rich strike in a prominent mine and advising that the matter be kept secret till a large amount of the stock could be secured, he bought forty “feet” of the stock at twenty dollars a foot, and afterward sold half of it at eight hundred dollars a foot and the rest at double that figure. Within three months he was worth a hundred and fifty thousand dollarsemendation, and had resigned his telegraphic position.

magnificence and misery.

Another telegraph operator who had been discharged by the company for divulging the secrets of the office, agreed with a moneyed man in San Francisco to furnish him the result of a great Virginia mining lawsuit within an hour after its private reception by the parties to it in San Francisco. For this he was to have a large [begin page 303] percentage of the profits on purchases and sales made on it by his fellow-conspirator. So he went, disguised as a teamster, to a little wayside telegraph office in the mountains, got acquainted with the operator, and sat in the office day after day, smoking his pipe, complaining that his team was fagged out and unable to travel—and meantime listening to the dispatches as they passed clicking through the machine from Virginia. Finally the private dispatch announcing the result of the lawsuit sped over the wires, and as soon as he heard it he telegraphed his friend in San Francisco:

“Am tired waiting. Shall sell the team and go home.”

It was the signal agreed upon. The word “waiting” left out, would have signified that the suit had gone the other way. The mock teamster’s friend picked up a deal of the mining stock, at low figures, before the news became public, and a fortune was the resultexplanatory note.

For a long time after one of the great Virginia mines had been incorporated, about fifty feet of the original location were still in the hands of a man who had never signed the incorporation papers. The stock became very valuable, and every effort was made to find this man, but he had disappeared. Once it was heard that he was in New York, and one or two speculators went east but failed to find him. Once the news came that he was in the Bermudas, and straightway a speculator or two hurried east and sailed for Bermuda—but he was not there. Finally he was heard of in Mexico, and a friend of his, a barkeeperemendation on a salary, scraped together a little money and sought him out, bought his “feet” for a hundred dollars, returned and sold the property for seventy-five thousand dollarsexplanatory note emendation.

But why go on? The traditions of Silverland are filled with instances like these, and I would never get through enumerating them were I to attempt toemendation do it. I only desired to give the reader an idea of a peculiarity of the “flush times” which I could not present so strikingly in any other way, and which some mention of was necessary to a realizing comprehension of the time and the country.

I was personallyemendation acquainted with the majority of the nabobs I have referred toemendation, and so, for old acquaintance saketextual note, I have shiftedemendation their occupations and experiencesemendation around in such a way as to keep the Pacific public from recognizing these once notorious men. No [begin page 304] longer notorious, for the majority of them have drifted back into poverty and obscurity againemendation. explanatory note

In Nevada there used to be current the story of an adventure of two of her nabobs, which may or may not have occurred. I give it for what it is worth:

Col. Jim had seen somewhat of the world, and knew more or less of its ways; but Col. Jack was from the back settlements of the States, had led a life of arduous toil, and had never seen a city. These two, blessed with sudden wealth, projected a visit to New York,—Col. Jack to see the sights, and Col. Jim to guard his unsophistication from misfortune. They reached San Francisco in the night, and sailed in the morning. Arrived in New York, Col. Jack said:

“I’ve heard tell of carriages all my life, and now I mean to have a ride in one; I don’t care what it costs. Come along.”

They stepped out on the sidewalk, and Col. Jim called a stylish barouche. But Col. Jack said:

No, sir! None of your cheap-John turn-outs for me. I’m here to have a good time, and money ain’t any object. I mean to have the nobbiest rig that’s going. Now here comes the very trick. Stop that yaller one with the pictures on it—don’t you fret—I’ll stand all the expenses myself.”

So Col. Jim stopped an empty omnibus, and they got in. Said Col. Jack:

“Ain’t it gay, though? Oh, no, I reckon not! Cushions, and windows, and pictures, till you can’t rest. What would the boys say if they could see us cutting a swell like this in New York? By George, I wish they could see us.”

Then he put his head out of the window, and shouted to the driver:

“Say, Johnny, this suits me!—suits yours truly, you betemendation you! I want this shebang all day. I’m on it, old man! Let ’em out! Make ’em go! We’ll make it all right with you, sonny!”

The driver passed his hand through the strap-hole, and tapped for his fare—it was before the gongs came into common use. Col. Jack took the hand, and shook it cordially. He said:

“You twig me, old pard! All right between gents. Smell of that, and see how you like it!”

[begin page 305] And he put a twenty-dollar gold piece in the driver’s hand. After a moment the driver said he could not make change.

“Bother the change! Ride it out. Put it in your pocket.”

Then to Col. Jim, with a sounding slap on his thigh:

Ain’t it style, though?

a friendly driver.
Hanged if I don’t hire this thing every day for a week.”

The omnibus stopped, and a young lady got in. Col. Jack stared a moment, then nudged Col. Jim with his elbow:

“Don’t say a word,” he whispered. “Let her ride, if she wants to. Gracious, there’s room enough.”

The young lady got out her porte-monnaie, and handed her fare to Col. Jack.

“What’s this for?” said he.

“Give it to the driver, please.”

“Take back your money, madam. We can’t allow it. You’re welcome to ride here as long as you please, but this shebang’s chartered, and we can’t let you pay a cent.”

The girl shrunk into a corner, bewildered. An old lady with a basket climbed in, and proffered her fare.

“Excuse me,” said Col. Jack. “You’re perfectly welcome here, madam, but we can’t allow you to pay. Set right down there, mum, and don’t you be the least uneasy. Make yourself just as free as if you was in your own turn-out.”

Within two minutes, three gentlemen, two fat women, and a couple of children, entered.

“Come right along, friends,” said Col. Jack; “don’t mind us. This is a free blow-out.” Then he whispered to Col. Jim, “New York ain’t no sociable place, I don’t reckon—it ain’t no name for it!”

He resisted every effort to pass fares to the driver, and made everybody cordially welcome. The situation dawned on the [begin page 306] people, and they pocketed their money, and delivered themselves up to covert enjoyment of the episode. Half a dozen more passengers entered.

astonishes the natives.

“Oh, there’s plenty of room,” said Col. Jack. “Walk right in, and make yourselves at home. A blow-out ain’t worth anything as a blow-out, unless a body has company.” Then in a whisper to Col. Jim: “But ain’t these New Yorkers friendly? And ain’t they cool about it, too? Icebergs ain’t anywhere. I reckon they’d tackle a hearse, if it was going their way.”

More passengers got in; more yet, and still more. Both seats were filled, and a file of men were standing up, holding on to the cleats overhead. Parties with baskets and bundles were climbing up on the roof. Half-suppressed laughter rippled up from all sides.

col. jack “weakens.”

[begin page 307] “Well, for clean, cool, out-and-out cheek, if this don’t bang anything that ever I saw, I’m an Injun!” whispered Col. Jack.

A Chinaman crowded his way in.

“I weaken!” said Col. Jack. “Hold on, driver! Keep your seats, ladies and gents. Just make yourselves free—everything’s paid for. Driver, rustle these folks around as long as they’re a mind to go—friends of ours, you know. Take them everywheres—and if you want more money, come to the St. Nicholas, and we’ll make it all right. Pleasant journey to you, ladies and gents—go it just as long as you please—it shan’t cost you a cent!”

The two comrades got out, and Col. Jack said:

“Jimmy, it’s the sociablest place I ever saw. The Chinaman waltzed in as comfortable as anybody. If we’d staid awhile, I reckon we’d had some niggers. B’ George, we’ll have to barricade our doors to-night, or some of these ducks will be trying to sleep with us.”

Editorial Emendations CHAPTER 46
  Two cousins (A)  ●  centered “EARLY DAYS” IN NEVADA. centered silver land nabobs. [¶] One of the curious features of Pacific Coast life is the startling uncertainty that marks a man’s career in the mines. He may spring from poverty to wealth so suddenly as to turn his hair white and then after a while he may become poor again so suddenly as to make all that white hair fall off and leave his head as clean as a billiard ball. The great Nevada silver excitement of ’58–’59 was prolific in this sort of vicissitudes. [¶] Two brothers (BE) 
  man (A)  ●  man in Virginia city (BE) 
  three hundred dollars (C)  ●  $300 (BE) 
  eight to ten thousand dollars (C)  ●  $8000 to $10,000 (BE) 
  a hundred thousand dollars (C)  ●  $100,000 (BE) 
  year. (A)  ●  year. They had that handsome income for just about two years—and they dressed in the loudest kind of costumes and wore mighty diamonds, and played poker for amusement, these men who had seldom had $20 at one time in all their lives before. One of them is tending bar for wages, now, and the other is serving his country as Commander-in-Chief of a street car in San Francisco at $75 a month. He was very glad to get that employment, too. (BE) 
  six thousand dollars’ (C)  ●  $6000 (BE) 
  of (A)  ●  not in  (BE) 
  could not (A)  ●  couldn’t (BE) 
  it. (A)  ●  it. But let us learn from him that persistent effort is bound to achieve success at last. Within a year’s time his happiness was secure; for he hadn’t a cent to spend. (BE) 
  sixteen thousand dollars (C)  ●  $16,000 (BE) 
  five dollars (A)  ●  $5 (BE) 
  he (A)  ●  ho (BE) 
  country. (A)  ●  country. Three years afterward he attained to the far more exceeding grandeur of working in it again, at four dollars a day. (BE) 
  a hundred thousand dollars (C)  ●  $100,000 (BE) 
  but . . . account. (A)  ●  and a little over a year ago a friend saw him shoveling snow on the Pacific Railroad for a living, away up on the summit of the Sierras, some 7,000 feet above the level of comfort and the sea. The friend remarked that it must be pretty hard work, though, as the snow was twenty-five feet deep, it promised to be a steady job, at least. Yes, he said, he didn’t mind it now, though a month or so ago when it was sixty-two feet deep and still a snowing, he wasn’t so much attached to it. Such is life. (BE) 
  Smith. (A)  ●  Smith. That wasn’t his name, but we wiil call him that. (BE) 
  soul (A)  ●  fellow (BE) 
  and (A)  ●  and the team belonged to another man. By and bye he married an excellent woman, who (BE) 
  him (A)  ●  them (BE) 
  two hundred and fifty (C)  ●  $250 (BE) 
  three hundred dollars (C)  ●  $300 (A)  $500 (BE) 
  retired from the hay business (A)  ●  quit raising hay (BE) 
  thirty thousand dollars (C)  ●  $30,000 (BE) 
  sixty thousand dollars (C)  ●  $60,000 (BE) 
  at any rate. (A)  ●  any how. He built a house out in the desert—right in the most forbidding and otherwise howling desert—and it was currently reported that that house cost him a quarter of a million. Possibly that was exaggerated somewhat, though it certainly was a fine house and a costly one. The bed   | steads cost $400 or $500 apiece. (BE) 
  he . . . he (A)  ●  the Smiths . . . they (BE) 
  he (A)  ●  Smith (BE) 
  wonders (A)  ●  wonder (BE) 
  everybody (A)  ●  every body (BE) 
  five hundred dollars (C)  ●  $500 (BE) 
  envelops (C)  ●  envelopes (BE) 
  said: (A)  ●  said, (BE) 
  than (A)  ●  that (BE) 
  Well, (A)  ●  Well  (BE) 
  0’s (A)  ●  naughts (BE) 
  ’em (A)  ●  em (BE) 
  please.” (A)  ●  please.” [¶] Well, Smith is dead. And when he died he wasn’t worth a cent. The lesson of all this is, that one must learn how to do everything he does—one must have experience in being rich before he can remain rich. The history of California will prove this to your entire satisfaction. Sudden wealth is an awful misfortune to the average run of men. It is wasting breath to instruct the reader after this fashion, though, for no man was ever convinced of it yet till he had tried it himself—and I am around now hunting for a man who is afraid to try it. I haven’t had any luck, so far. [¶] All the early pioneers of California acquired more or less wealth, but an enormous majority of them have not got any now. Those that have, got it slowly and by patient toil. (BE) 
  The Gould & Curry (A)  ●  The reader has heard of the great Gould & Curry silver mine of Nevada. I believe its shares are still quoted in the stock sales in the New York papers. The (BE) 
  twelve hundred feet, and (A)  ●  1200 feet, if I remember rightly, or may be it was 800—and I think (BE) 
  the (A)  ●  not in  (BE) 
  seventeen (A)  ●  17 (BE) 
  nine (A)  ●  9 (BE) 
  three (A)  ●  3 (BE) 
  that (A)  ●  not in  (BE) 
  million (BE)  ●  millions (A) 
  directly (A)  ●  right (BE) 
  a hundred feet (A)  ●  100 ft (BE) 
  traded (A)  ●  swapped (BE) 
  hundred feet (A)  ●  100 ft (BE) 
  mill) (A)  ●  mill), (BE) 
  one million five hundred thousand dollars. (C)  ●  $1,500,000. (A)  $1,500,000. I was down in it about that time, 600 ft under the ground, and about half of it caved in over my head—and yet, valuable as that property was, I would have given the entire mine to have been out of that. I do not wish to brag—but I can be liberal if you take me right. (BE) 
  twenty (A)  ●  20 (BE) 
  sorry-looking (C)  ●  sorry looking (BE) 
  was, (A)  ●  was  (BE) 
  three thousand dollars (C)  ●  $3000 (BE) 
  had not (A)  ●  hadn’t (BE) 
  sixty-thousand-dollar . . . bareback (A)  ●  60,000-dollar horse and yet had to ride him bareback because he couldn’t scare up cash enough to buy a saddle (BE) 
  sixty-thousand-dollar (A)  ●  60,000-dollar (BE) 
  him. (A)  ●  him. [¶] The shiftless people I have been talking about have settled sedimentally down to their proper place on the bottom, but the solid mining prosperity of California and Nevada continues—the two together producing some $40,000,000 annually in gold and silver. White Pine is giving birth to the usual number of suddenly-created nabobs, but three years hence nearly every one of them will be scratching for wages again. Petroleum bred a few of these butterflies for the eastern market. They don’t live long in Nevada. I was worth half a million dollars myself, once, for ten days—and now I am prowling around the lecture field and the field of journalism, instructing the public for a subsistence. I was just as happy as the other butterflies, and no wiser—except that I am sincerely glad that my supernatural stupidity lost me my great windfall before it had a chance to make a more inspired ass of me than I was before. I am satisfied that I do not know enough to be wealthy and live to survive it. I had two partners in this brilliant stroke of fortune. The sensible one is still worth a hundred thousand dollars or so—he never lost his wits – but the other one (and by far the best and worthiest of our trio), can’t pay his board. (BE) 
  a hundred and fifty thousand dollars (C)  ●  $150,000 (A) 
  barkeeper (C)  ●  bar-keeper (A) 
  seventy-five thousand dollars (C)  ●  $75,000 (A) 
  to (C)  ●  not in  (A) 
  personally (A)  ●  pe sonally (BE) 
  majority . . . to (A)  ●  several nabobs mentioned in this letter (BE) 
  shifted (A)  ●  swapped (BE) 
  experiences (A)  ●  exp[ ]riences (BE) 
  No . . . again (A)  ●  I have no desire to drag them out of their retirement and make them uncomfortable by exhibiting them without mask or disguise—I merely wish to use their fortunes and misfortunes for a moment for the adornment of this newspaper article (BE) 
  bet (C)  ●  bet, (A) 
Textual Notes CHAPTER 46
 for old acquaintance sake] Although the preferred modern spelling would be “for old acquaintance’ sake,” Fowler (533) and the OED (s.v. “sake”) assert that it was correct in the nineteenth century (and remains so today) to omit the apostrophe from abstract nouns in such possessive constructions. The BE spelling is therefore acceptable and, furthermore, corresponds with Mark Twain’s known practice: see 15 Jan 67 to Hingston, “for old acquaintance sake” ( L2 , 8). See also the clipping on discarded manuscript page 968 (page 816), where the phrase remains unaltered, without the apostrophe.
Explanatory Notes CHAPTER 46
 Two . . . him.] Mark Twain first published this passage in a Buffalo Express “Around the World” letter on 8 January 1870; he revised the earlier printing for inclusion in Roughing It (SLC 1870a).
 Two cousins . . . a hundred thousand dollars a year] In the earlier version of this passage in the Express, the two teamsters are called brothers, rather than cousins. Mark Twain may therefore have originally had in mind Theodore and Joseph Winters—both of whom he [begin page 665] knew—who hauled logs on the Truckee River ditch before the snows drove them into Carson Valley at the right time in 1859 to establish early and profitable claims on the Comstock (“Returns from Washoe,” Marysville [Calif.] Appeal, 10 Nov 63, 2; ET&S1 , 339–42, 461; L1 , 275, 279–80 n. 11).
 John Smith . . . I’ll take that money, if you please] Mark Twain is alluding to Lemuel Sanford (Sandy) Bowers (1830–68), an unlettered nabob famous for his conspicuous display of wealth. According to the reminiscences of Almarin B. Paul and C. C. Stevenson, both pioneer settlers of Gold Hill, Bowers located his ten-foot claim in Gold Hill gulch in the fall of 1858, before the discovery of the Comstock lode. His claim, later combined with the adjoining ten feet held by his wife, Eilley Orrum (1826–1903), proved to be on the richest section of the lode. Bowers built a ten-stamp mill in Crown Point Ravine in 1861 and enlarged it to twenty stamps in 1862. The Bowerses traveled in Europe in 1862–63, during which time their mansion in Washoe Valley was constructed and furnished in lavish style. An 1864 Enterprise item, possibly by Clemens, described the costly fittings of the house and put Bowers’s monthly income at $70,000. Bowers died in April 1868, leaving a surprisingly depleted estate of $638,000. Mrs. Bowers, prey to poor management and a variety of swindlers, lost everything—including her house—over a period of years, and was forced to eke out a living as the “Washoe seeress.” This anecdote about the ship’s pool was published in California newspapers in May 1865; the incident allegedly occurred a few months earlier on board the steamer Champion (Angel, 39, 58, 68; Hermann, 12–17; “Pioneer Reminiscences in Washoe,” Sacramento Union, 9 Oct 63, 4, reprinting the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise of 7 October; “A Washoe Palace,” Stockton Independent, 30 Sept 63, 3, reprinting the Carson City Independent; “The Bowers Mill,” Virginia City Union, 28 Apr 64, 3; Addenbrooke, 36; “A Washoe Nabob,” Mining and Scientific Press 8 [13 Feb 64]: 102, reprinting the Virginia City Territorial Enterprise; “Death of a Good Citizen,” Gold Hill Evening News, 21 Apr 68, 3; “Out of His Reckoning,” Sacramento Bee, 2 May 65, 2).
 The Gould & Curry claim . . . was worth . . . seven million six hundred thousand dollars in gold coin] In January 1867, during his voyage from San Francisco to New York, Mark Twain made the following notebook entry—one of several entries recording anecdotes later included in Roughing It: “Curry sold 600 feet of Gould & Curry for $2,600. Gould sold 600 feet for $250, an old plug horse, a jug of whisky & a pair of blankets” ( N&J1 , 293; see the notes at 301.14–21, 301.22–28, 318.1–2, 322.14–15, and 331.10). Alva Gould (1815–?93) emigrated from Michigan to California in 1849–50. He was a placer miner there until 1858, when he went to Carson County, Utah Territory. His later [begin page 666] accounts—dictated in 1877 and 1891—of locating a claim, with Abraham Curry (see the note at 162.5), on the Comstock in early 1859 are contradictory. He consistently asserted, however, that Curry sold his share in their claim to Henry Meredith for $2,400, while he was defrauded of his own interest. In 1863, Gould unsuccessfully sued the Gould and Curry Silver Mining Company “for the recovery of 70 feet of their ground,” claiming that since he had never sold his share, it remained his “by right of location” (“Suit against the Gould & Curry Co.,” Eureka [Calif.] Humboldt Times, 17 Oct 63, 3). Gould also figured in a well-known Comstock anecdote, involving his sale of what may have been a different claim, in which he accepted $450 from a California speculator and then rode drunkenly down Gold Canyon shouting, “Oh, I’ve fooled the Californian!” (Lord, 60). Gould spent his last years as a fruit peddler at the Reno train depot. At its peak price of $6,300 a foot in June 1863, the 1,200-foot Gould and Curry mine was worth, as Mark Twain states, about $7.6 million (Gould, 1–20; “Chapter about Closed,” Sacramento Record-Union, 2 Sept 93, 1; “Alva Gould,” San Francisco Morning Call, 10 Mar 91, 7; “General Mining Stock Report,” Mining and Scientific Press 6 [29 June 63]: 5).
 a poverty-stricken Mexican . . . one million five hundred thousand dollars] Compare this January 1867 entry in Clemens’s notebook: “100 feet of Ophir (the present Mexican) was segregated for a stream of water as large as your wrist to some Spaniards. Afterwards worth $18,000 a foot” ( N&J1 , 294). While giving slightly different figures for its later value, this entry and Roughing It both give condensed versions of the early history of the Mexican, or Spanish, mine, a 100-foot claim reportedly traded in mid-1859 by the original owners of the Ophir claim to Henry Comstock and Emanuel Penrod in return for water rights. Later that year Gabriel Maldonado, a Mexican, and Francis J. Hughes bought the claim for $9,500 and organized the Mexican Company. In 1864 the value of the dividend-paying Mexican mine was judged to be $1 million; the value of the company’s mill at Empire City (east of Carson) is not known. Mark Twain published accounts of his two descents into the mine in October 1862 and February 1863 (“Silver in Nevada,” Sacramento Union, 2 May 64, 4; SLC 1862g, 1863a).
 An individual who owned . . . a sixty-thousand-dollar horse] Another January 1867 notebook entry reads, “A man sold 26 feet of Ophir or Yellow Jacket for an old plug horse—called him the $26,000 horse” ( N&J1 , 293). The allusion may be to James Finney, who sold to Henry Comstock his interest in the Ophir claim for “a certain Indian pony, bob-tailed, lean and aged. . . . According to some authorities, divers bottles of exhilarating fluids formed part of the consideration by Finney received on that occasion” (DeGroot 1876a).
 A youth of nineteen . . . made himself rich by watching the mining telegrams] John William (Johnny) Skae (1841?–85) was a native [begin page 667] of Canada who emigrated in the late 1850s to California, and shortly thereafter to Nevada. In the early 1860s he used his position with the Virginia City telegraph office to gain inside information: “He soon acquired such profits from his speculations that he abandoned his profession and launched out as a capitalist” ( ET&S2 , 72–73, 77–78, 123, 254–60; “Death of ‘Johnny’ Skae,” San Francisco Morning Call, 17 July 85, 1). Skae’s abuse of his position may have prompted the California State Telegraph Company (which had jurisdiction over the Virginia City office) in April 1863 to prohibit “persons employed by them from owning feet in mining ground” (“Taking the Feet from Telegraph Employees,” San Francisco Evening Bulletin, 22 Apr 63, 1, reprinting the Virginia City Union of 17 April). Skae, whom Mark Twain portrayed in three 1864–65 sketches as a convivial companion and “inimitable punster,” also served as a trustee and vice-president of the Virginia and Gold Hill Water Company, and in 1863 became superintendent of the Hale and Norcross mine, in which Clemens invested (Angel, 588; “Death of John Skae, the Mining Operator,” San Francisco Evening Bulletin, 17 July 85, 2; “Death of John Skae,” Virginia City Evening Chronicle, 17 July 85, 3; L1 , 300–301 n. 4).
 Another telegraph operator . . . a fortune was the result] Mark Twain may be recalling David C. Williams, a San Francisco stockbroker and former telegraph operator who was implicated in more than one incident involving the use of the wires to make a profit on Nevada mining stocks. In July 1864 Williams, posing as a teamster, spent more than a week at a stage and telegraph station near Placerville. He made note of the messages being transmitted, and even tried to bribe the operator to let him handle the wires, hoping to overhear the decision in the Savage and North Potosi lawsuit and wire it to his confederates in San Francisco so that they could buy shares in the victorious company before the news became public. Unlike the character in the Roughing It account, however, Williams was unsuccessful: the operator summoned a detective, who arrested him (“Williams, the Wire-Worker,” San Francisco Morning Call, 12 Aug 64, 1; “Monopolizing the Line,” Virginia City Union, 19 Apr 64, 3).
 

a friend . . . sought him out, bought his “feet” . . . and sold the property for seventy-five thousand dollars] A similar story is told of John W. Mackay (1831–1902), who became famous in the 1870s as a “Big Bonanza” millionaire. In 1863 the owners of the Kentuck mine were prevented from incorporating by the disappearance of one of the original locators, who still owned several shares in the mine. Learning that he was with the Confederate army in Tennessee, Mackay traced him and returned

with the missing block of feet and a bill of sale to show his ownership. Mackay never revealed how he secured them but the legend insists he dogged his man into the front lines before Chattanooga and wrangled over the price while Parrott rifles boomed and Minié balls ripped overhead. (Beebe and Clegg, 66)

  [begin page 668] I was . . . again.] This paragraph, like the first part of the chapter, was based on an earlier printing in the Buffalo Express for 8 January 1870 (SLC 1870a). When Mark Twain was composing Roughing It, he discarded a sheet of manuscript on which he had pasted and revised a clipping of this passage from the Express; it is reproduced on page 816 in the Introduction.