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Harte, Bret, 1836-1902

"Drift from Two Shores"

Lord, how he got me
quite interested in ye, telling me how you and him got out on a
ticket-of-leave, and was chased by them milishy guards, and at last
swam out to a San Francisco bark and escaped;" but here the
inevitable pressure of previous business always stopped the
captain's conversational flow. The natural result of this was a
singular reaction in favor of the late Roger Catron in the public
sentiment of Sandy Bar, so strong, indeed, as to induce the Rev.
Mr. Joshua McSnagly, the next Sunday, to combat it with the moral
of Catron's life. After the service, he was approached in the
vestibule, and in the hearing of some of his audience, by Captain
Dick, with the following compliment: "In many pints ye hed jess got
Roger Catron down to a hair. I knew ye'd do it: why, Lord love ye,
you and him had pints in common; and when he giv' ye that hundred
dollars arter the fire in Sacramento, to help ye rebuild the
parsonage, he said to me,--me not likin' ye on account o' my being
on the committee that invited ye to resign from Marysville all
along o' that affair with Deacon Pursell's darter; and a piece she
was, parson! eh?--well, Roger, he ups and sez to me, 'Every man hez
his faults,' sez he; and sez he, 'there's no reason why a parson
ain't a human being like us, and that gal o' Pursell's is pizen, ez
I know.


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