Then Brown he smiled a bitter smile, an’ said he was at fault, It seems he had been trespassing on Jones’s family vault; He was a most sarcastic man, this quiet Mr. Brown, And on several occasions he had cleaned out the town. Now, I hold it is not decent for a scientific gent To say another is an ass,――at least, to all intent; Nor should the individual who happens to be meant Reply by heaving rocks at him, to any great extent. Then Abner Dean, of Angel’s, raised a point of order, when A chunk of old red sandstone took him in the abdomen; And he smiled a kind of sickly smile, and curled up on the floor, And the subsequent proceedings interested him no more; For, in less time than I write it, every member did engage In a warfare with the remnants of the palæozoic age; And the way they heaved those fossils, in their anger, was a sin, ’Till the skull of an old mammoth caved the head of Thompson in. And this is all I have to say of these improper games, For I live at Table Mountain, and my name is Truthful James; And I’ve told in simple language what I knew about the row That broke up our society upon the Stanislow. * * * * * DICKENS IN CAMP. ABOVE the pines the moon was slowly drifting, The river sang below; The dim Sierras, far beyond, uplifting Their minarets of snow. The roaring camp-fire, with rude humor, painted The ruddy tints of health On haggard face and form, that drooped and fainted In the fierce race for wealth ’Till one arose, and from his pack’s scant treasure A hoarded volume drew, And cards were dropped from hands of listless leisure To hear the tale anew. And then, while shadows ’round them gathered faster, And as the firelight fell, He read aloud the book wherein the Master Had writ of “Little Nell.” Perhaps ’twas boyish fancy,――for the reader Was the youngest of them all,―― But, as he read, from clustering pine and cedar A silence seemed to fall. The fir-trees, gathering closer in the shadows, Listened in every spray, While the whole camp with “Nell” on English meadows Wandered and lost their way. And so, in mountain solitudes, o’ertaken As by some spell divine, Their cares drop from them like the needles shaken From out the gusty pine. Lost is that camp, and wasted all its fire, And he who wrought that spell; Ah! towering pine and stately Kentish spire, Ye have one tale to tell! Lost is that camp! but let its fragrant story Blend with the breath that thrills With hop-vines’ incense, all the pensive glory That thrills the Kentish hills;