Guy Fawkes affair, and laid it carefully on the floor three or four yards from the judge's feet. Wrapped ill meditation upon the intricacies of the case before him, and following his usual practice, his honor unconsciously made Turk's hat a mark for his tobaccotainted ejections. A head-dress of that kind and quality was worth two or three ounces, and Turk was particularly proud of his hat, as well as sensitive as to its treatment He sought to catch the judge's eye, coughed, moved his hat as he thought beyond the reach of danger, moved it twice, thrice; but ever the somnambulic eye of the judge followed it, and ever with unerring aim the discharge from his mouth did hlthy execution. Turk could endure it no longer. Boiling with indignation he stepped up to the judge, shook his fist in his face, and fairly yelled his curses. This demonstration and the roar which followed awoke the judge to a realizing sense of things, and he lauo-hed with the rest.
It was a dry business listening to dry cases, and spurting tobacco-juice at a mark across the room by the hour, and the judge was not the man to sit and suffer through the day. He was now a great man; but great men grow thirsty. All great men in California at that time were thirsty men. Indeed thirst was a mark of greatness, and the more thirsty a judge the more was he esteemed fit for the position. There was nothing at all strange then that Judge Almond should pause occasionally in his proceedings to quench his thirst. And this was done with characteristic openness, though not in defiance of any sense of public propriety. There were always those about the court, accuser and accused, counsel, jurymen, witnesses, ready to drink as often as the judge desired, especially if some beside themselves paid for it. Hence there were no decisions emanating from that bench which met with greater general approval than when the judge paused in the midst of a case, and raising himself to his full height announced,
