We found him standing on a table in a
saloon, with an old tin lantern in one hand and the school report in the
other, haranguing a gang of intoxicated Cornish miners on the iniquity of
squandering the public moneys on education "when hundreds and hundreds of
honest hard-working men are literally starving for whiskey." [Riotous
applause.] He had been assisting in a regal spree with those parties for
hours. We dragged him away and put him to bed.
Of course there was no school report in the Union, and Boggs held me
accountable, though I was innocent of any intention or desire to compass
its absence from that paper and was as sorry as any one that the
misfortune had occurred.
But we were perfectly friendly. The day that the school report was next
due, the proprietor of the "Genessee" mine furnished us a buggy and asked
us to go down and write something about the property--a very common
request and one always gladly acceded to when people furnished buggies,
for we were as fond of pleasure excursions as other people. In due time
we arrived at the "mine"--nothing but a hole in the ground ninety feet
deep, and no way of getting down into it but by holding on to a rope and
being lowered with a windlass. The workmen had just gone off somewhere
to dinner. I was not strong enough to lower Boggs's bulk; so I took an
unlighted candle in my teeth, made a loop for my foot in the end of the
rope, implored Boggs not to go to sleep or let the windlass get the start
of him, and then swung out over the shaft.
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