SELF-CONTROL.

Daily Telegraph (Napier), Issue 3153, 5 August 1881, Page 4

SELF-CONTROL.

(From the.San Francisco Post.) T>-ii^? U -- may Say Wllat you P lease about old Bill Gndley, said a gentleman just down from Bodie, to the crowd who were spinning for hotscotches in Phil McGovern's back room the other night. 'I know there's lots 'er fellers talking against him—'specially now that he's dead—but I allers speaks of a man as I find him, and old Bill was as fail' and square a one as I wish fcer see, spite of his crankiness. .

' Putty bad tempered, wasn't he ?' said Phil, who was sprinkling red pepper on the •alt herring to encourage trade. 1 Well, he was —and he wasn't. IVe seen that man keep his grip on himself and go along cool and easy like when any other man in the camp would have etood on his hind legs and rared. I call to mind suthin that showed what a big heart old G-ridley had in his shirt. You see, we were at a mining camp called Lone Skull, up on the Feather River, and Bill's claim had panned co rich that he began to put on a good deal of style. He had the largest

r " "'"■ i '" sliaucy in the piuce—four rooms —and what must G-ridley do but send clear round the Horn for a carpet for the parlor. It took him neady a year to get it out, and then :t was the only ■ carpet in that part of the State. White ground with yellow and rad flowers Folks used to come for milea to see it.' 'Ts this yarn in one' act?' growled a friend of the miner, who was wistfullywatching; the barkeeper take the lid off some hot chowder in the other "room. ' It's in one scene,' continued the party from Bodie. ' Lemme see; where was I ? Well, to make a long story short, I was playing pedro in Bill's best room one night, with some prospectors just up from 'Frisco, and was losing considerable dust, when I dropped on one <if em taking a "jack " out of hi?, sleeve. A- !m-k would have it, I ■-•iv.'u't V,«;e'eil thSt night, so I just picked up a tobuer-o knife that. Jay on the table and ;-nt. the fellow's throat clean across. ; scheme, too, , grunted a faro steerer, in approval.' ' Well—as I was saying old Gridley, who was in the next room, heard the scuffle and came in. There was that cut chap lying on the floor, with his blood streaming all over the carpet—the whole thing just ruined. Everybody was ncarerl to see Bill's facp—lie looked just awful. I expected to eet a iiviUet through my head quicker'n a wink.' 'This is pretty tonjih on me,'says Gridley, looking at the carpet. ' T know, Bill, , says I, ' and I axes yer mrdinsr, old man. T never once thought of the carpet. I wouldn't 'er done it. if I had.' 'No ; ' don't believe you would, Tom,' mv< he. kinrW sorrowful like. 'I don'fc believo you would. . And lie actually helped me heave the corpse outer the winder, and kimW wipe up the muse a little. I tell you irentlemen, old Bill G-ridley was a white man, he was ; and if I ever go back on him after that, I'm a coyote !'

And they all agreed that a man must hare a pretty big heart to act like that, after all.