surveyor as the best and quickest way of having it done. Well, the surveyor came with his tripod, compass, transit, sextant and such things. He stood Calaveras up a hundred yards away, and began to bear upon him with his transit, right and left, taking distances and marking angles. Geiger, who was noting it down in his order book, said it was the first time in his life he ever heard the measurer yell.     ‘Ten feet, six inches.     ‘Three yards, one foot.’     ‘Two rods, twenty-four inches,’     ‘It took almost half a day to make the survey, and the engineer said he guessed the suit would fit if he hadn’t strained his instrument in taking the distances. It was an instrument made for surveying ordinary town lots, and this was the first hard test it had been put to.     ‘ Well, the suit was made, but the scaffold had to be built after all. It was a queer sight to see twenty tailors on scaffolds all around that young man, sewing away for six days. During the job scaffolding was changed fifty-three times. At last, when the job was finished and the scaffolding taken down, Geiger got mad and told Calaveras he had better take the lumber home, and next time get a carpenter to fence him instead of busting up a tailor.     ‘Why, did it break Geiger up, John ?     ‘Just the same thing. His stock was exhausted when the suit was done and he closed up shop.     ‘He got his money, though, for the clothes?     ‘Well, yes, but not without foreclosing the mortgage and forcing the old man Calaverous into bankruptcy. Then the old fellow swore he’d shoot his boy if he had a cannon handy.     ‘No need, however.’         ‘Why?’

‘Because the lad died the next spring.’     ‘Of what?’     ‘He growed so fat one day that he split open like a roasted chestnut. That was the day when the greatest windstorm ever known on the Pacific Slope swept over California,     ‘And John—’     ‘Yes, dear.’     ‘Was this young man a Christian?’     ‘ He was born a Christian, but whether he outgrowed it I couldn’t say.     “Do you think he went to heaven?     ‘No doubt of it—that is, he went there; but whether he got in is another question. I’ll bet St. Peter had to unlock the carriage-gate or lay down twenty panel of fence if the young man became an inmate of that country. When I go up there I shan’t be one bit surprised to find Calaveras’ spirit camping on the commons just outside the walls. Oh-a-yah,’ yawned John, guess I’ll go to bed.     ‘Do, dear. You must be so tired,’ murmured Mrs. Sanscript. From— The Democratic Press. (Ravenna, O. [Ohio]), 12 Feb. 1880. Chronicling America: Historic American Newspapers. Lib. of Congress.