Virginia City was quite a small, scattered place, perched like an eagle’s nest among the mountains, just big enough to hold a few hundred miners, a bar or two, and a small hotel. The first thing that struck me was the great number of well-dressed, well-to-do loafers hanging about the streets, apparently with no work and no interest in life. I asked what it meant. “Them fellows is all rich miners,” said Curly Bill, “everyone of them has a share in the mine in which he works. It’s their time off now—they work eight hours, sleep eight hours, and loaf eight hours—yes, sir! presently those men will all be going on their shift, and working naked to the waist, with nothing on but a pair of cotton drawers and their shoes, down a couple of thousand feet or thereabouts, in a heat which would make Hell ashamed of itself.” Mr. Fair was the only one of the four magnificos who happened to be in Virginia City at the time of our visit: he was the most genial of hosts, and we dined with him that evening; he lived in the simplest fashion in a small white house with green shutters at one end of the town. The order of architecture was that of the cheap toy doll’s house—a door in the middle, windows on each side—a ground floor and first floor and of necessity a roof. There was one maid-servant, and kind, handsome Mrs. Fair cooked the dinner, over which, after a slight change of toilette, she presided with all the grace of a charming hostess. An excellent leg of mutton and a rice-pudding composed the bill of fare. That was the frugal way in which this rich gentleman, worth millions of dollars—indeed of pounds—lived while he was at work, and that was how the great millionaire ladies seconded their husbands; when their day came they knew how to be magnificent. It is almost impossible for us Englishmen to think of another lady who in all the bloom of her youth and beauty did the washing for her husband’s camp, and later in life girded at the pettiness of the authorities of Paris for not allowing her to buy or even to hire the Arc de l’Étoile in order that she might more brilliantly illuminate a great entertainment! But those were the changes and chances of the lives of those who worked in such places as Poker Flat or Roaring Camp. Patriarchal simplicity followed by a prodigality exceeding even what the vats and mash-tubs of the great brewers could aspire to.