‘I know its hard to believe, wife; but I hope I may never die if it isn’t true. He lay down to sleep on the porch that night, and next day the old man busted the gable end out of the house and put up double doors like they have in a barn, just to accommodate his son.’     ‘But, John, that couldn’t have done much good,’ suggested Mrs. Sanscript     ‘ Why not?’ asked John, with a frightened look, fearing the old woman was about to corner him.     ‘ Why that only let the boy in one room, and how could he get through into the rest of the house?     ‘He couldn’t. One room had to do him, because the old man swore he’d see that brat banked up before he’d knock out the partitions, too.’     ‘See the brat—what?’     ‘See him banked up. Don’t you understand? Damned—banked up.’     ‘Oh!’     ‘Yes, sir; but the house failed at last.’     ‘Failed, John.’     ‘That is what I said. The young man outgrew the old family mansion! He woke up one morning and found the double doors too narrow to furnish his exit. No time was to be lost, It was a fine growing weather in spring, and the old man swore he wasn’t prepared to have his house split all to the devil by a growing boy, so he just knocked off the door-jambs to squeeze the youngster through.’     ‘And then ?’     ‘Well, that’s the last time the young man of Calaveras ever got inside of a mansion this side the sky.’     ‘This side the sky?’

‘That’s what I said. Don’t know about the mansions up there,’ said Sanscript, casting his eyes piously toward the attic.     ‘ Why, John, did the poor dear boy die?     ‘Did he die? Didn’t he though.’     ‘But, John, how did the boy get clothes to fit him?     ‘That brings me to my personal recollection of him. Let’s see,’ said John, looking into the fire with great steadiness. ‘I think it was in the fall of ’56—anyhow it was coming nigh onto winter. I was sitting into Joe Geiger’s tailor shop down in ’Frisco, talking over the prospects for a cold season, when a boy came in and said there was a man down on the Commons as big as a meetin’ house, who wanted to see Mr. Geiger right away. ‘Then why don’t he come and see me,’ said Geiger. ‘’Cause he can’t get through the streets without obstructing trade and delaying transportation,’ said the boy. That settled it. Geiger and me started right straight down to the Commons to see the big man.     ‘A circus must have come to town,’ said Geiger, as we emerged on the Commons.     ‘Why?’ asked I.     ‘Because there is the tent,’ said he     ‘Tent!’ said the boy who had followed us ; ‘that aint no tent ; that’s the man what wants to see you. He is sitting down now.’     Sure enough it was the big boy from Calaveras. He arose to receive us, and we stood looking up to him like rats looking at an elephant.     ‘I want to get a suit of clothes,’ came rumbling down from the sky where his head was sticking.     Geiger fell back into my arms in a dead faint. While he was coming to I noticed that the big boy needed a suit rather bad. All he had on was several window curtains and table-cloths.