"It's the first time," returned Jack gravely, "that I ever was insulted by having a _whole_ potato brought to me. I didn't know it was possible before. Perhaps in this part of the country the vegetables are poor. I'm a stranger to this section. I take it you are too. But because I am a stranger I don't see why I should be imposed upon." "Ah, I see," said the mystified Raynor, "but if I might ask another question--you'll excuse me if I'm impertinent--I noticed that you just now advised your servant to take his gun into the kitchen with him; surely"---- "Pete," interrupted Mr. Hamlin, languidly, "is a good nigger. I shouldn't like to lose him! Perhaps you're right--maybe I am a little over-cautious. But when a man has lost two servants by gunshot wounds inside of three months, it makes him careful." The perfect unconcern of the speaker, the reticence of his companion, and the dead silence of the room in which this extraordinary speech was uttered, filled the measure of Mr. Raynor's astonishment. "Bless my soul! this is most extraordinary. I have seen nothing of this," he said, appealing in dumb show to his companion. Mr. Hamlin followed the direction of his eyes. "Your friend is a Californian and knows what we think of any man who lies, and how most men resent such an imputation, and I reckon he'll endorse me!" The editor muttered a hasty assent that seemed to cover Mr. Hamlin's various propositions, and then hurriedly withdrew, abandoning his charge to Mr. Hamlin. What advantage Jack took of this situation, what extravagant accounts he gravely offered of the vegetation in Lower California, of the resources of the country, of the reckless disregard of life and property, do not strictly belong to the record of this veracious chronicle. Notwithstanding all this, Mr. Raynor found Mr. Hamlin an exceedingly fascinating companion, and later, when the editor had rejoined them, and Mr. Hamlin proceeded to beg that gentleman to warn Mr. Raynor against gambling as the one seductive, besetting sin of California, alleging that it had been the ruin of both the editor and himself, the tourist was so struck with the frankness and high moral principle of his new acquaintance as to insist upon his making one of their party, an invitation that Mr. Hamlin might have accepted but for the intervention of a singular occurrence.