Stopping his trap in the moonlight, a little way out of Calistoga,
he told me, in so many words, that he dare not show face therewith
an empty pocket. "You see, I don't mind if it was only five
dollars, Mr. Stevens," he said, "but I must give Mr. Kelmar
SOMETHING."
Even now, when the whole tyranny is plain to me, I cannot find it
in my heart to be as angry as perhaps I should be with the Hebrew
tyrant. The whole game of business is beggar my neighbour; and
though perhaps that game looks uglier when played at such close
quarters and on so small a scale, it is none the more intrinsically
inhumane for that. The village usurer is not so sad a feature of
humanity and human progress as the millionaire manufacturer,
fattening on the toil and loss of thousands, and yet declaiming
from the platform against the greed and dishonesty of landlords.
If it were fair for Cobden to buy up land from owners whom he
thought unconscious of its proper value, it was fair enough for my
Russian Jew to give credit to his farmers. Kelmar, if he was
unconscious of the beam in his own eye, was at least silent in the
matter of his brother's mote.
THE ACT OF SQUATTING
There were four of us squatters--myself and my wife, the King and
Queen of Silverado; Sam, the Crown Prince; and Chuchu, the Grand
Duke. Chuchu, a setter crossed with spaniel, was the most unsuited
for a rough life.
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