The Evansville journal. [volume] (Evansville, Ind.) 1866-1870, 1867-08-08
A Renaissance Of Artemus Ward.

L had never seen him before. he
brought letters of introduction from
mutual friends in San Francisco, and
by invitation [ breakfasted with him.
1t was almost religion, there In the
silver mines, to precede such a meal
with ewhisky cocktails tArtemus,
with true cosmopolita u instinct,
always deferred to the customs of the
country he was in, and so he ordered
/ three of these denominations. Kings
ton was present. I ain match for
nearly any beverage you can mention
except a whisky cock tail, and there.
|, fore said l would rather not drink
one. | said it would go right to my
head and confuse me so that i would
be in a helpless tangle in ten minutes
| [ did not want 20 act like lunatic
| before strangers. But Artemus gent
| ly insisted, and [ drank the treason
able mixture under protest, and felt
all the time that | was doing thing
[ might be sorry for. In minute or
two [ began to imagine that my ideas
were clouded. | waited in great
anxiety for the conversation to ope n,
with sort of vague hope that my
understanding would prove clear,
after all, and my misgivings ground
less.
Artemus dropped an unimportant
remark or two, and then assumed a
look of superhuman earnestness, and
made the following astounding speech.
He said:
Now, there is one thing | ought
to ask you about before | forget it.
You have been here in Silverland-
| here in Nevada-two or three years,
and, of course, your position on the
daily press has made it necessary for
you to go down in the mines and ex-
anime them carefully In detail, and
therefore you know all about the sill
yer mining business. Now, what /
want to get at isis Well, the way
the deposits OF ore are made, you
know. For instance. Now, as | un-
derstand it. the vein which contains
the silver is sandwiched in between
Vcastings of granite, and runs along
the ground, and sticks up like curb
| stone.38W nff 2f H7
Well, take vein forty feet thick
for example-or eighty, for that mat
ter, or even hundred; say you &C
down on it with shaft-straigh
down, you know, or with what yot
call an = incline y; may be you gt
down FIVE hundred feet, or may B,
you don't go down but. two hundred
any way, you go down, ant all tn
time this vein grows narrower, wheI
the castings come nearer, or approach
when they do approach, whit a, o
course, they do not always do, particu
larry In cases where the nature of tn
! c,,oh fho+ thor or NJ
apart wider than they otherwis
would, and which geology has faile'
; to account for. although every thin
: in the science goes to prove that, a.
things being equal, it would, if it dl
not, or would not, certainly if it die
s and then of course they are. Do no
you think it is?
1 said to myself, 8 Now | just kne'
how it would be-that cussed whisk
. cocktail has done the business for nae
1 don't understand any more than
clam. And then l said aloud. l.
2 THAT is-if you don't mind, woul
[ you-would you say that over again
Il / ought
oh, certainly, certainly You sc
am very unfamiliar with the sui
n ject, and perhaps [ don't present II
:, case clearly, but /
mo, mono, no-you state it plai
enough, but that vile cocktail hi
muddled me little. But | will un-
do understand, for that matter, .b'
I would get the hang of it all the be
ter if you went over it, again-aar
81 I'll pay better attention this time.
$ He said Why. what5I was afte
was this" Here he became eve
D. more fearfully impressive than eve