scientific agriculture. After his graduation (he stood almost at
the very top of his class) he had returned and obtained the
degree of civil engineer. Then suddenly he had taken a notion
that a practical knowledge of law was indispensable to a modern
farmer. In eight months he did the work of three years, studying
for his bar examinations. His method of study was
characteristic. He reduced all the material of his text-books to
notes. Tearing out the leaves of these note-books, he pasted
them upon the walls of his room; then, in his shirt-sleeves, a
cheap cigar in his teeth, his hands in his pockets, he walked
around and around the room, scowling fiercely at his notes,
memorising, devouring, digesting. At intervals, he drank great
cupfuls of unsweetened, black coffee. When the bar examinations
were held, he was admitted at the very head of all the
applicants, and was complimented by the judge. Immediately
afterwards, he collapsed with nervous prostration; his stomach
"got out of whack," and he all but died in a Sacramento boarding-
house, obstinately refusing to have anything to do with doctors,
whom he vituperated as a rabble of quacks, dosing himself with a
patent medicine and stuffing himself almost to bursting with
liver pills and dried prunes.

He had taken a trip to Europe after this sickness to put himself
completely to rights. He intended to be gone a year, but
returned at the end of six weeks, fulminating abuse of European
cooking. Nearly his entire time had been spent in Paris; but of
this sojourn he had brought back but two souvenirs, an electro-
plated bill-hook and an empty bird cage which had tickled his
fancy immensely.