remember what I had; I'd dine again ten scores of times upon a night
like this. Read it, you blazing ass! I'm not insane.--Here, Mamie," I
continued, opening the bedroom door, "come out and make it up with me,
and go and kiss your husband; and I'll tell you what, after the supper,
let's go to some place where there's a band, and I'll waltz with you
till sunrise."

"What does it all mean?" cried Jim.

"It means we have a champagne supper to-night, and all go to Vapor
Valley or to Monterey to-morrow," said I.--"Mamie, go and get your
things on; and you, Jim, sit down right where you are, take a sheet of
paper, and tell Franklin Dodge to go to Texas.--Mamie, you were right,
my dear; I was rich all the time, and didn't know it."

CHAPTER XIX

TRAVELS WITH A SHYSTER

The absorbing and disastrous adventure of the _Flying Scud_ was now
quite ended; we had dashed into these deep waters and we had escaped
again to starve; we had been ruined and were saved, had quarrelled and
made up; there remained nothing but to sing _Te Deum_, draw a line, and
begin on a fresh page of my unwritten diary. I do not pretend that I
recovered all I had lost with Mamie, it would have been more than I had
merited; and I had certainly been more uncommunicative than became
either the partner or the friend. But she accepted the position
handsomely; and during the week that I now passed with them, both she
and Jim had the grace to spare me questions. It was to Calistoga that we
went; there was some rumour of a Napa land-boom at the moment, the
possibility of stir attracted Jim, and he informed me he would find a
certain joy in looking on, much as Napoleon on St. Helena took a
pleasure to read military works. The field of his ambition was quite
closed; he was done with action, and looked forward to a ranch in a
mountain dingle, a patch of corn, a pair of kine, a leisurely and
contemplative age in the green shade of forests. "Just let me get down
on my back in a hayfield," said he, "and you'll find there's no more
snap to me than that much putty."

And for two days the perfervid being actually rested. The third, he was
observed in consultation with the local editor, and owned he was in two
minds about purchasing the press and paper. "It's a kind of a hold for
an idle man," he said pleadingly; "and if the section was to open up
the way it ought to, there might be dollars in the thing." On the fourth
day he was gone till dinner-time alone; on