The day came. On Kearny street I met one of
the stockholders--a careful Presbyterian brother, who loved money. He
had a solemn look, and was walking slowly, as if in deep thought.
Lifting his eyes as we met, he saw me, and spoke:
"It is lead!"
"What is lead?"
"Our silver mine in Deep Spring Valley."
Yes; from the seventy tons of rock we got eleven dollars in silver, and
about fifty pounds of as good lead as was ever molded into bullets.
The board held a meeting the next evening. It was a solemn one. The
fifty-pound bar of lead was placed in the midst, and was eyed
reproachfully. I resigned my trusteeship, and they saw me not again.
That was my first and last mining speculation. It failed somehow--but
the assays were all very good.
Mike Reese.
I had business with him, and went at a business hour. No introduction
was needed, for he had been my landlord, and no tenant of his ever had
reason to complain that he did not get a visit from him, in person or by
proxy, at least once a month. He was a punctual man--as a collector of
what was due him. Seeing that he was intently engaged, I paused and
looked at him. A man of huge frame, with enormous hands and feet,
massive head, receding forehead, and heavy cerebral development, full
sensual lips, large nose, and peculiar eyes that seemed at the same time
to look through you and to shrink from your gaze--he was a man at whom
a stranger would stop in the street to get a second gaze.
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