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The Writings of Bret Harte (2); Tales of the Argonauts
The Writings of Bret Harte Tales of the Argonauts - 2 Author:Bret Harte Volume: 2 General Books publication date: 2009 Original publication date: 1896 Original Publisher: Houghton Mifflin Subjects: American literature Literary Collections / American / General Literary Criticism / General Literary Criticism / American / General Literary Criticism / American / African American Literary Criticism / W... more »omen Authors Notes: This is a black and white OCR reprint of the original. It has no illustrations and there may be typos or missing text. When you buy the General Books edition of this book you get free trial access to Million-Books.com where you can select from more than a million books for free. Excerpt: ME. THOMPSON'S PRODIGAL We all knew that Mr. Thompson was looking for his son, and a pretty bad one at that. That he was coming to California for this sole object was no secret to his fellow- passengers ; and the physical peculiarities as well as the moral weaknesses of the missing prodigal were made equally plain to us through the frank volubility of the parent. " You was speaking of a young man which was hung at Red Dog for sluice-robbing," said Mr. Thompson to a steerage passenger one day ; " be you aware of the color of his eyes ?" " Black," responded the passenger. " Ah! " said Mr. Thompson, referring to some mental memoranda, " Char-les's eyes was blue." He then walked away. Perhaps it was from this unsympathetic mode of inquiry, perhaps it was from that Western predilection to take a humorous view of any principle or sentiment persistently brought before them, that Mr. Thompson's quest was the subject of some satire among the passengers. A gratuitous advertisement of the missing Charles, addressed to " Jailers and Guardians," circulated privately among them ; everybody remembered to have met Charles under distressing circumstances. Yet it is but due to my countrymen to state that when it was known that Thompson had embarked some wealth in this visionary project, but little of this satire found its way to his ears, and noth...« less