Luckily, on this particular morning he reached his office and entered his private room without any serious rencontre. Here he opened his desk, and arranging his papers, he at once set to work with grim persistency. He had not been occupied for many minutes before the door opened to Mr. Pyecroft--one of a firm of attorneys who undertook the colonel's office work. “I see you are early to work, Colonel,” said Mr. Pyecroft cheerfully. “You see, sir,” said the colonel, correcting him with a slow deliberation that boded no good--“you see a Southern gentleman--blank it!--who has stood at the head of his profession for thirty-five years, obliged to work like a blank nigger, sir, in the dirty squabbles of psalm-singing Yankee traders, instead of--er--attending to the affairs of--er--legislation!” “But you manage to get pretty good fees out of it--Colonel?” continued Pyecroft, with a laugh. “Fees, sir! Filthy shekels! and barely enough to satisfy a debt of honor with one hand, and wipe out a tavern score for the entertainment of--er--a few lady friends with the other!” This allusion to his losses at poker, as well as an oyster supper given to the two principal actresses of the “North Star Troupe,” then performing in the town, convinced Mr. Pyecroft that the colonel was in one of his “moods,” and he changed the subject. “That reminds me of a little joke that happened in Sacramento last week. You remember Dick Stannard, who died a year ago--one of your friends?” “I have yet to learn,” interrupted the colonel, with the same deadly deliberation, “what right HE--or ANYBODY--had to intimate that he held such a relationship with me. Am I to understand, sir, that he--er--publicly boasted of it?” “Don't know!” resumed Pyecroft hastily; “but it don't matter, for if he wasn't a friend it only makes the joke bigger. Well, his widow didn't survive him long, but died in the States t'other day, leavin' the property in Sacramento--worth about three thousand dollars--to her little girl, who is at school at Santa Clara. The question of guardianship came up, and it appears that the widow--who only knew you through her husband--had, some time before her death, mentioned YOUR name in that connection! He! he!” “What!” said Colonel Starbottle, starting up.