o
_the shop_ goods, etc., which might otherwise devolve upon himself. But
men, girls and boys were always scheming and practising jokes and tricks
upon the _beau_. The boys would all rush off to dinner--first having so
dirtied the water, hid the towels and soap, that poor Charley would
necessarily be obliged to go down into the public street and bring up a
bucket of the clean element to wash his begrimed face and hands. And
mark the difficulties and _diplomacy_ of such an arrangement. Charley
would slip down into the lower entry, peep out to see if any body was
looking,--if a genteel person was visible, the _beau_ held back with his
bucket; after various reconnaissances, the coast would appear clear, and
the _beau_ would dash out to the pump, agitate "the iron-tailed cow"
with the force and speed of an infantile earthquake--snatch up the
bucket, and with one _dart_ hit the doorway, and glide up stairs,
thanking his stars that nobody "seen him do it!"

In one of these _forays_ for water, the _beau_ was decidedly cornered by
two of the "shop girls." They, sly creatures, observed poor Charley from
an upper "landing" of the stairway, in the entry below, watching his
chance to get a clear coast to fill his dirty bucket. The moment the
beau darted out, down rush the girls--slam to the door and bar it!

The _beau_, dreaming of no such diabolical inventions, gives the pump an
awful _surge_, fills the bucket, looks down the street, and--O! murder,
there come two ladies--the first _cuts_ of the city, to whom Charley had
once the honor of a personal introduction! With his face turned over his
shoulder at the _ladies_--his nether limbs desperately nerved for _tall
walking_,--he dashes at the supposed open entryway, and--nearly knocked
the panel out of the door, smashing the bucket, spilling the water, and
slightly killing himself!

It was almost "a cruel joke," in the girls, who, taking advantage of
the stunning effect of the operation, unbarred the door and vanished,
before poor Charley picked himself up and scrambled into the lower store
to recuperate.

Weeks ran on; the beau had enjoyed a respite from the wiles of his
persecutors, when one morning he was forced to come down into the store
in his working gear, well be-spattered with oleaginous substances, dust
and dirt; in this gear, Charley presented about as ugly and primitive a
looking Christian, as might not often--before California life was
dreamed of--be seen in a city.