At length, about half-past eight of our last evening, with the wagon ready harnessed to convey us up the grade, the washerman, with a somewhat sneering air, produced the boy. He was a handsome, gentlemanly lad, attired in rich dark blue, and shod with snowy white; but, alas! he had heard rumours of Silverado. He know it for a lone place on the mountainside, with no friendly washhouse near by, where he might smoke a pipe of opium o’ nights with other China-boys, and lose his little earnings at the game of tan; and he first backed out for more money; and then, when that demand was satisfied, refused to come point-blank. He was wedded to his washhouses; he had no taste for the rural life; and we must go to our mountain servantless. It must have been near half-an-hour before we reached that conclusion, standing in the midst of Calistoga high street under the stars, and the China-boy and Kong Sam Kee singing their pidgin-English in the sweetest voices and with the most musical inflections.