"It means we have a champagne supper to-night, and all go to Vapor Valley or to Monterey to-morrow," said I.--"Mamie, go and get your things on; and you, Jim, sit down right where you are, take a sheet of paper, and tell Franklin Dodge to go to Texas.--Mamie, you were right, my dear; I was rich all the time, and didn't know it." CHAPTER XIX TRAVELS WITH A SHYSTER The absorbing and disastrous adventure of the _Flying Scud_ was now quite ended; we had dashed into these deep waters and we had escaped again to starve; we had been ruined and were saved, had quarrelled and made up; there remained nothing but to sing _Te Deum_, draw a line, and begin on a fresh page of my unwritten diary. I do not pretend that I recovered all I had lost with Mamie, it would have been more than I had merited; and I had certainly been more uncommunicative than became either the partner or the friend. But she accepted the position handsomely; and during the week that I now passed with them, both she and Jim had the grace to spare me questions. It was to Calistoga that we went; there was some rumour of a Napa land-boom at the moment, the possibility of stir attracted Jim, and he informed me he would find a certain joy in looking on, much as Napoleon on St. Helena took a pleasure to read military works. The field of his ambition was quite closed; he was done with action, and looked forward to a ranch in a mountain dingle, a patch of corn, a pair of kine, a leisurely and contemplative age in the green shade of forests. "Just let me get down on my back in a hayfield," said he, "and you'll find there's no more snap to me than that much putty." And for two days the perfervid being actually rested. The third, he was observed in consultation with the local editor, and owned he was in two minds about purchasing the press and paper. "It's a kind of a hold for an idle man," he said pleadingly; "and if the section was to open up the way it ought to, there might be dollars in the thing." On the fourth day he was gone till dinner-time alone; on the fifth we made a long picnic drive to the fresh field of enterprise; and the sixth was passed entirely in the preparation of prospectuses. The pioneer of M'Bride City was already upright and self-reliant, as of yore; the fire rekindled in his eye, the ring restored to his voice; a charger sniffing battle and saying "ha-ha" among the spears. On the seventh morning we signed a deed of partnership, for Jim would not accept a dollar of my money otherwise; and having once more engaged myself--or that mortal part of me, my purse--among the wheels of his machinery, I returned alone to San Francisco and took quarters in the Palace Hotel.