Next day he fell into a barrel of red paint he was swobbin' on the hotel to keep her from warpin', an' every blessed man in camp passed out about six jokes apiece relatin' to local color. He never saddened up none, though, just smiled sorrowful, as though he pitied us, an' went on tanglin' up everything he touched. An' then there was another curious speciment there; a tall thin feller, with one o' them lean, chinny faces. He claimed 'at he had been a show actor, but his lungs had given out--claimed he was a tragudian, but Great Scott! he couldn't even turn a handspring. He said he was recuperatin', an' he sure did hit his liquor purty hard; but I never could make out what he expected to get out of a minin' camp, 'cause he was full as useless as Local Color. About half the fellers you meet strayin' around out here are a bit one-sided, but we don't care so long as they're peaceable. When you'd guy this one a little stout, he'd fold his arms, throw back his head, an' say, "Laugh, varlets, laugh! Like the cracklin' o' thorns under a pot, is the laughter of fools." This was the brand of langwidge 'at flowed from this one, an' he wasn't no ways stingy with it. Well, they had kept these two at boys' jobs an' boys' wages, an' when I offered 'em the position of deputy watchmen, they fair jumped at it. Said Local Color, "It will be a golden opportunity to perpetuate the seething thoughts which crowd upon my brain." Said Hamlet, "I thank thee, sir, for this, thy proposition fair. In sooth I'll try the cold-air cure, and in the majesty of prime-evil silence, I shall make the snow-capped mountains echo to the wonderful rhapsodies of Shakespeare." Well, the' was a super-abundance of cold air an' prime-evil silence an' snow-capped mountains, an' I didn't care a hang what he did to 'em, so long as it kept me from gettin' everlastin' sick o' my own company. I never see any company yet 'at wasn't a shade better'n just my own. I knew I could stand these two innocents for four months, an' if they got violent I could rope an' tie 'em. When everybody begun to get ready to pull out, I took the twenty-mule team down to town to get our needin's. I took the children along with me, an' I sez to 'em, "Now, boys, no drinkin' goes up above through the winter. We simply have to go out an' get disgusted with it before we start back." Well, we sure had a work-out. On the sixth day Hamlet, he throws his arm around my neck an' busts out cryin' an' sez, "Happy, it is the inflexible destiny o' the human race to weary of all things mortal, an' I'm dog-tired o' bein' drunk--an' 'sides, I'm busted." It turned out that he didn't have any advantage over me an' Locals in this respect, so we went to the company store an' got three bushels o' nickle libraries, enough grub to do six men six months, enough tobacco to do twelve men a car, an' a little yeller pup 'at we give six bits for. I didn't 'low to run any risks this deal.