As Pinkerton's incognito was strict, I had
little opportunity to cultivate the lady's
acquaintance, but I was informed afterwards that she
considered me "the wittiest gentleman she had ever
met." "The Lord mend your taste in wit!" thought I;
but I cannot conceal that such was the general
impression. One of my pleasantries even went the round
of San Francisco, and I have heard it (myself all
unknown) bandied in saloons. To be unknown began at
last to be a rare experience; a bustle woke upon my
passage, above all, in humble neighbourhoods. "Who's
that?" one would ask, and the other would cry, "That!
why, Dromedary Dodd!" or, with withering scorn, "Not
know Mr. Dodd of the picnics? Well!" and, indeed, I
think it marked a rather barren destiny; for our
picnics, if a trifle vulgar, were as gay and innocent
as the age of gold. I am sure no people divert
themselves so easily and so well, and even with the
cares of my stewardship I was often happy to be there.
Indeed, there were but two drawbacks in the least
considerable. The first was my terror of the hobble-
dehoy girls, to whom (from the demands of my situation)
I was obliged to lay myself so open.
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