ever
likely to occur; that I had believed him so implicitly as to sit down
and write it out (as other reporters have done before me) in language
calculated to deceive the public into the conviction that I was present
at it myself, and to embellish it with a string of falsehoods intended
to render that deception as plausible as possible. I ruminated upon my
singular position for many minutes, arrived at no conclusion--that is to
say, no satisfactory conclusion, except that Lawler was an accomplished
knave and I was a consummate ass. I had suspected the first before,
though, and been acquainted with the latter fact for nearly a quarter of
a century.

In conclusion, permit me to apologize in the most abject manner to the
present Governor of California, to Hon. Mr. Low, the Governor elect, to
Judge Field and to Hon. Wm. M. Stewart, for the great wrong which my
natural imbecility has impelled me to do them in penning and publishing
the foregoing sanguinary absurdity. If it were to do over again, I don't
really know that I would do it. It is not possible for me to say how I
ever managed to believe that refined and educated gentlemen like these
could stoop to engage in the loathsome and degrading pastime of
prize-fighting. It was just Lawler's work, you understand--the lubberly,
swelled up effigy of a nine-days drowned man! But I shall get even with
him for this. The only excuse he offers is that he got the story from
John B. Winters, and thought of course it must be just so--as if a
future Congressman for the state of Washoe could by any possibility tell
the truth! Do you know that if either of these miserable scoundrels
were to cross my path while I am in this mood I would scalp him in a
minute? That's me--that's my style.

A CONCORD LOVE-SONG

BY JAMES JEFFREY ROCHE

Shall we meet again, love,
In the distant When, love,
When the Now is Then, love,
And the Present Past?
Shall the mystic Yonder,
On which I ponder,
I sadly wonder,
With thee be cast?

Ah, the joyless fleeting
Of our primal meeting,
And the fateful greeting
Of the How and Why!
Ah, the Thingness flying
From the Hereness, sighing
For a love undying
That fain would die!

Ah, the Ifness sadd'ning,
The Whichness madd'ning,
And the But ungladd'ning,
That lie behind!
When the signless token
Of love is broken
In the speech unspoken
Of mind to mind!

But the mind perceiveth
Wh