Charley evidently took the doctor's attempted pleasantry a little ungraciously, and the subject was dropped.
This reprehensible-propensity for betting on every possible subject is a peculiarity of California, and crops out distinctly on all occasions. Your genuine Californian, whether of Spanish origin and to the manner born, or Yankee by habit and only a son of the Golden State by adoption, has two peculiarities which strike a stranger most forcibly, next to his pardonable admiration for everything Californian, and, as a matter of course, contempt for anything which is not. He is perfectly cosmopolitan in his sympathy for misfortune, want, or suffering, and ready to give on the instant with reckless liberality, to any person or cause appealing to him for assistance, and is ever ready to bet his last dollar, the shirt off his back, or the boots off his feet, for or against any proposition on any subject which any person may advance in his hearing. Say to him, "Mrs. Smith, who has seven fatherless children, lost her house by fire last night," and he answers, "That is all I want to hear, bet your life, old boy! Here is all the loose change I have got about me; but if you cannot make up enough, come again and I'll give you a check!" Does he ride in a stage-coach over the Sierra Nevada, and in turning a short curve it misses stays and goes over the precipice—a by no means uncommon occurrence—he improves the opportunity as the vehicle goes crashing over the rocks, to shout in his neighbor's ear, "I go you the drinks for all hands, that over half
