llows were going to give me a bogus pipe?'

"There was no way for Dan to escape, and he confessed. Sam walked up and
down the floor, as if trying to decide which way to slay Dan. Finally he
said:

"'Oh, Dan, to think that you, my dearest friend, who knew how little
money I had, and how hard I would work to prepare a speech that would
show my gratitude to my friends, should be the traitor, the Judas, to
betray me with a kiss! Dan, I never want to look on your face again. You
knew I would spend every dollar I had on those pirates when I couldn't
afford to spend anything; and yet you let me do it; you aided and
abetted their diabolical plan, and you even got me to get up that damned
speech to make the thing still more ridiculous.'

"Of course Dan felt terribly, and tried to defend himself by saying that
they were really going to present him with a fine pipe--a genuine one,
this time. But Sam at first refused to be comforted; and when, a few
days later, I went in with the pipe and said, 'Sam, here's the pipe the
boys meant to give you all the time,' and tried to apologize, he looked
around a little coldly, and said:

"'Is that another of those bogus old pipes?'

"He accepted it, though, and general peace was restored. One day, soon
after, he said to me:

"'Steve, do you know that I think that that bogus pipe smokes about as
well as the good one?'"

Many years later (this was in his home at Hartford, and Joe Goodman was
present) Mark Twain one day came upon the old imitation pipe.

"Joe," he said, "that was a cruel, cruel trick the boys played on me;
but, for the feeling I had during the moment when they presented me with
that pipe and when Charlie Pope was making his speech and I was making
my reply to it--for the memory of that feeling, now, that pipe is more
precious to me than any pipe in the world!"

Eighteen hundred and sixty-three was flood-tide on the Comstock. Every
mine was working full blast. Every mill was roaring and crunching,
turning out streams of silver and gold. A little while ago an old
resident wrote:

When I close my eyes I hear again the respirations of hoisting-
engines and the roar of stamps; I can see the "camels" after
midnight packing in salt; I can see again the jam of teams on C
Street and hear the anathemas of the drivers--all the mighty work
that went on in order to lure the treasures from the deep chambers
of the great lode and to bring enlightenment to the