Carroll, unfortunately, allowed his mind to wander and stray overmuch in the maze of theological mysteries and its (to him) apparent contradictions. He instituted a private and personal quarrel between himself and his Creator, and for years he obtruded his quarrel into all manner of places and assemblages. He arrived at last at that point where many do under similar circumstances--a belief in total annihilation after death, and this serving to make him more miserable than ever, his only relief was to convert others to the same opinion and make them as wretched as himself. Occasionally he succeeded. He came to me one day and on his face was the grin of a fiend. “I’ve got Cummings,” said he. “Cummings thought this morning he was a good Methodist, but I’ve been laboring with him for weeks. I’ve convinced him of the falsity of it all. I knocked his last plank of faith from under him to-day. He hasn’t now a straw to cling to, and he’s as miserable as I am.” “But with Mullins,” he remarked afterward, “I’ve slipped up on him. I wrought three weeks with Mullins; took him through the Bible, step by step--unconverted him steadily as we went along--got him down to the last leaf in the last chapter of the last book of Revelations, and there, fool like, I let up on him to go home to supper. And do you know when I tackled him next morning, to close out Mullins’ faith in the religion of his fathers, I found Mullins, in my absence, had got scared. He’d galloped in belief way back to Genesis, and now, I’ve got all that job to do over again.” There was a great deal of life in those little mining camps in Tuolumne County like Jamestown. They might not have the population of a single block in New York City, but there was a far greater average of mental activity, quickness, and intelligence to the man, at least so far as getting the spice out of life was concerned. The social life of a great city may be much more monotonous through that solitude imposed by great numbers living together. Everybody at these camps knew us, and we knew everybody, and were pretty sure of meeting everybody we knew. In the town one is not sure of meeting an acquaintance socially, save by appointment. There are few loafing or lounging resorts; people meet in a hurry and part in a hurry. Here in New York I cross night and morning on a ferry with five hundred people, and of these 495 do not speak or know each other.