Poor things! I felt bad to see 'em and to think there wuz a war of extermination tryin' to be waged aginst 'em, because they interfered with the rights of a few. One of the most interesting animals on the Western continent! It seems too bad they're tryin' to wipe 'em out of existence because the fishermen say they eat a sammon now and then. Why shouldn't they who more than half belong to the water-world once in a great while have a little taste of the good things of that world as well as to have 'em all devoured by the inhabitants of dry land? And they say that the seals eat sharks too--I should think that that paid for all the good fish they eat. But to resoom. Tommy didn't think of the rights or the wrongs of the seals, he had no disquietin' thoughts to mar his anticipations, but he wonnered if he could put his hands through 'em like he could his ma's seal muff. He thought that they wuz muffs, silk lined--the idee! And he "wonnered" a sight when he see the great peaceable lookin' creeters down in the water and on the rocks, havin' a good time, so fur as we could see, in their own world, and mindin' their own bizness; not tryin' to git ashore and kill off the fishermen, because they ketched so many sammons. And Tommy had to feed the seals and do everything he could do, Robert Strong helpin' him in everything he undertook, and he "wonnered" if they would ever be changed into muffs, and he "wonnered" if they would like to be with "ribbon bows on." At my request we went through Lone Mountain Cemetery, a low mountain rising from the sandy beach full of graves shaded by beautiful trees and myriads of flowers bending over the silent sleepers, the resistless sea washing its base on one side--just as the sea of Death is washing up aginst one side of Life--no matter how gay and happy it is. We rode home through a magnificent park of two thousand acres. Money had turned the sandy beach into a wealth of green lawns, beautiful trees and myriads of flowers. I had always sposed that them Eastern Genis in the "Arabian Nights" had palaces and things about as grand and luxurious as they make, but them old Genis could have got lots of pinters in luxury and grand surroundin's if they'd seen the homes of these nabobs in the environins of San Francisco. No tongue can tell the luxury and elegance of them abodes, and so I hain't a goin' to git out of patience with my tongue if it falters and gins out in the task. CHAPTER VI The next mornin' while Miss Meechim and Dorothy wuz to the lawyers, tendin' to that bizness of hern and gittin' ready for their long tower, Robert Strong took me through one of them palaces. It stood only a little distance from the city and wuz occupied by one old gentleman, the rest of the family havin' died off and married, leavin' him alone in his glory. Well said, for glory surrounded the hull spot.