beheld of Jones was at Tarport, where he was driving a dray. Bradford’s Riddell House and St. James Hotel both sized up to the most exacting requirements. Good hotels and good restaurants were seldom far behind the triumphant march of the pioneers whose successes established oil-towns. Col. Gardner, “a big man any way you take him,” was Chief-of-Police at Pithole. He has operated at Bradford and Warren, toyed with politics and military affairs and won the regard of troops of friends. Charles H. Duncan, of Oil City—his youthful appearance suggests Ponce de Leon’s spring—served in the borough-council, of which James M. Guffey, the astute Democratic leader and successful producer, was clerk. Col. Morton arrived in August of 1865 with a carpet-bag of job-type. His first work—tickets for passage over Little Pithole Creek—the first printing ever done at Pithole, was never paid for. The town had shoals of trusty, generous fellows—“God’s own white boys,“ Fred Wheeler dubbed them—whose manliness and enterprise and liberality were always above par. When men went crazy at Pithole and outsiders thought the oil-country was “flowing with milk and honey” and greenbacks, a party of wags thought to put up a little joke at the expense of a new-comer from Boston. They arranged with the landlord for some coupon-bonds to use in the dining-room of the hotel and to seat the youth at their table. The New-Englander was seated in due course. The guests talked of oil-lands, fabulous strikes and big fortunes as ordinary affairs. Each chucked under his chin a five-twenty government-bond as a napkin. One lay in front of the Bostonian’s plate, folded and creased like a genuine linen-wiper. Calmly taking the “paper” from its receptacle, the chap from The Hub wiped his brow and adjusted the valuable napkin over his shirt-bosom. A moment later he beckoned to a servant and said: “See here, waiter, this napkin is too small; bring me a dish of soup and a ‘ten-forty.’” The jokers could not stand this. A laugh went around the festive board that could have been heard at the Twin Wells and the matter was explained to the bean-eater. He was put on the trail of “a soft snap” and went home in a month with ten-thousand dollars. “Bring me a ten-forty” circulated for a twelve-month in cigar-shops and bar-rooms.