y person that was a burden to me and bought not a
single lot. There were many others who were in the same fix that I was.
You may say, "What a lot of fools," and I would say, "Yes." Here is
another little joke: Sometime before this I made a deposit of a sack of
gold dust with Adams & Co.'s Express in San Francisco. When the time
came for me to leave the city, I went into the office to draw my sack of
dust. The clerk brought it forward at once and I said, "How much for the
deposit?" He said, "Five dollars." Then I said, "You will have to take
it out of the sack as I have no coin." He said, "Are you going to sell
it?" "Yes," I said. "Well," said he, "You can sell it at the counter on
the other side, and pay that clerk." "All right," said I, and sold my
dust. It amounted to $425. He counted out the $25 in small change, and
slipped it out onto the counter. I let it lay there until he had counted
out the rest.

A Deal In "Slugs."

At this time the $50 slugs were in circulation. He counted out the $400
in a pile and took hold of the bottom one and set the pile over to my
side of the counter, as much as to say, "There is your money." I said to
him "There is five dollars coming to you for the deposit of the dust."
He picked the five dollars out of the change on the counter. I picked up
the balance of the change and put it into my pocket. I also picked up
the pile of slugs by the bottom one in the same way that he handed them
to me and dropped them into an outside pocket of my coat without
counting them, and started for the four o'clock boat for Stockton. On my
way to the wharf I thought that pile of slugs looked large and I took
them out and counted them. I found that I had twelve instead of eight. I
turned around and went back to the office, to the same counter and
clerk, and said to him, "Do you rectify mistakes here?" He said, "Not
after a man leaves the office." I said, "All right," and left the office
and made the Stockton boat all right. But there were no insane asylums
there at that time.

Harry Meiggs.

In the early fifties Honest Harry Meiggs (as he was called) was one of
our most enterprising, generous and far-seeing citizens. His first
venture was in the banking business. It was while engaged in this
pursuit that he gained the name "Honest Harry Meiggs." His banking
business was good for a year or so and then he conceived the idea of
building a wharf at North Beach. It commenced at Francisco street
betw