Sacramento daily record-union., 1881-11-12

dry goods importers in Church street but
he is seldom seen in the counting-room. A
wealthy bachelor uncle, whose heir he ex-
poets to be, put lot Of money in the firm
in his name. His partners do not, fancy,
expect him to do much. He is known as
the ornamental member of the house he
is bright and decidedly snowy. Aren't his
brown hair and reddish whiskers mag
nifcently arranged? And did you ever see
a dress coat and trousers fit better? The
tails of his coat hang ideally. His clothes
have made the fortune of his Fifth-avenue
tailors. Pail Mall swells now send orders
to them. After all, there are no tailors
like those of New York.
81 want to introduce you to my friends,
especially to those l have pointed ont.
They include variety of character, and
may entertain you at least. You mustn't
be too critical, Goodwin. 1t is bad way
to begin life. Take the world as it comes.
It's pretty poor world, I admit. If I'd
attempted to make world myself, I'd
have done better, or have given up the job.
Nature does as well as she can, doubtless /;
but she's limited, like everything else and
we mustn't expect too much of her. Take
my arm, please, and we'll go the round.
Well commence with the ladies. Where's
Miss Royden o, 1 see her, chatting with
Yardley. She's escaped for the moment
from her Gallic griffin.
Oscar Goodwin was twenty.nine = he
looked rather older, perhaps, from a sober
temperament ard habit of refection-and
was Californian in the accepted sense.
He had not been born in the Golden State,
but in Syracuse, New York, and had gone,
as a child of six, with his father, than three
years a widower, to the Pacific coast in
1858. The elder Goodwin was genuine
American. He had been educated at a
country academy; he was man OF good
mind and excessive energy, but lacking
somewhat in stability. He studied law in
Utica, and might have made success at
the bar, had he not grown impatient at
what seemed to him very slow progress.
He married a pretty, intellectual, fragile
girl before he had any financial reason fer
assuming such responsibility, and found it
needful to try something more lucrative
than the law. He went into merchandise /;
speculated considerably, aud lost every.
thing, when he was the father of three
children, the Oldest, Oscar. The two
youngest, always delicate, soon died, and
their mother did not long survive.
Alone in the world with his boy, Ed.
ward Goodwin resolved to go to California
as new land of promise. He had varied
fortunes there; made money again and
again, and lost it was by turns merchant,
lawyer, journalist, peddler, miner, specu.
lator, and finally again became a merchant
in Sacramento. By fortunate speculations
in grant lands, by rapid turning of his
means, and by seizing upon the advantages
afforded by that era when agriculture in
the Golden State began to feel the impetus
that subsequently made it the chief indus
try of the coast, he made half million in
his varied operations. Once more turning
his attention to mines, he was direct
ing the work of one of them in the
Sierra range, when he interfered, being
naturally chivalrous, TO protect the mis-
tress OF notorious Irish desperate, who
had already knocked her down. He was
unarmed but in the passionate indigna.
tion of the moment, he struck the fellow
in the face, and was shot dead with re-
volver in the hands of the cowardly ruff
fan. The rough but justice loving miners
gave short shrift and long rope to the
Irishman, and thousand dollars in gold
dust to the poor woman, and sent her to
San Francisco.
Oscar was then thirteen. Friends inter
ested themselves in the boy, to whom the
paternal estate secured $50, 600, which was
securely invested. He left the California
metropolis not long after. and entered Har-
ward University. Having been graduated
with honors at nineteen, he spent some
time in travelling through his own country,
and then decided to study In Germany,
not SO much, perhaps, from love of learn
ing as from sense of uncertainty respect
ing the profession or pursuit he should
adopt. He spent year at Bonn, and
went afterward to Berlin, where he learned,
he said, more of human nature than of
science or philosophy. Still undecided as
to his future, he lounged for years about
Europe; visited the Far East twice cir
cumnavigated the globe, and finally re-
solved to return to his native land and fit
himself for the law, for which he had made
various general studies abroad.
He had made the acquaintance in Paris
of DIR. Charles Archer, who claimed to be
attending medical lectures there, and SUBJ
sequently saw good deal of him in Vienna
and Switzerland. Archer had unquestion-
able talent with a special aptitude for his
profession but he had an income of about
5000 year-just enough, as he often de-
clAred, to make man lazy without rem
nering him materially comfortable. He
had an Office in Thirty-fourth street, and
his hours were from 10 A. NJ. to P. NJ, at
which hours, his friends said, he was sure
to be somewhere else. His knowledge of
medicine was considerable-he had con trib-
uted several valuable papers to the medical
journals-and he talked ably and eloquently
on hygiene and therapeutics. But he sadly
lacked application, frequently remarking
that medicine was more his profession than
his practice. He had number of patients,
nearly all of them very poor, for whom
Archer prescribed gratuitously, because, as
he said, it was evident they could not af-
ford to be i'll, and it was abominable to
make them worse by dosing them. He was
forever iesting, not sparing his own guild
any more than any other, except when
called in professionally. Then he ceased to
laugh at physic and physicians, holding