Being in command and likewise part-owner of a smart
schooner, I had my work cut out for me, and I was doing it. Consequently,
gold in California was no business of mine.
But, by the time when I came home to England again, the thing was as
clear as your hand held up before you at noon-day. There was Californian
gold in the museums and in the goldsmiths' shops, and the very first time
I went upon 'Change, I met a friend of mine (a seafaring man like
myself), with a Californian nugget hanging to his watch-chain. I handled
it. It was as like a peeled walnut with bits unevenly broken off here
and there, and then electrotyped all over, as ever I saw anything in my
life.
I am a single man (she was too good for this world and for me, and she
died six weeks before our marriage-day), so when I am ashore, I live in
my house at Poplar. My house at Poplar is taken care of and kept ship-
shape by an old lady who was my mother's maid before I was born. She is
as handsome and as upright as any old lady in the world.
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