The weather being warm, and the tropics close at hand, Major Hockin was dressed in a fine suit of Nankin, spruce and trim, and beautifully made, setting off his spare and active figure, which, though he was sixty-two years of age, seemed always to be ready for a game of leap-frog.
We were three days out of the Golden Gate, and the hills of the coast ridge were faint and small, and the spires of the lower Nevada could only be caught when the hot haze lifted; and every body lay about in our ship where it seemed to afford the least smell and heat, and nobody for a moment dreamed--for we really all were dreaming--of any body with energy enough to be disturbed about any thing, when Major Hockin burst in upon us all (who were trying not to be red-hot in the feeble shade of poop awnings), leading by the hand an ancient woman, scarcely dressed with decency, and howling in a tone very sad to hear.
"This lady has been robbed!" cried the Major; "robbed, not fifteen feet below us.

Robbed, ladies and gentlemen, of the most cherished treasures of her life, the portrait of her only son, the savings of a life of honest toil, her poor dead husband's tobacco-box, and a fine cut of Colorado cheese." "Ten pounds and a quarter, gospel true!" cried the poor woman, wringing her hands, and searching for any kind face among us.
"Go to the captain," muttered one sleepy gentleman.

"Go to the devil," said another sleepy man: "what have we to do with it ?" "I will neither go to the captain," replied the Major, very distinctly, "nor yet to the devil, as a fellow who is not a man has dared to suggest to me--" "All tied in my own pocket-handkerchief!" the poor old woman began to scream; "the one with the three-cornered spots upon 'un.

Only two have I ever owned in all my life, and this was the very best of 'em.

Oh dear! oh dear! that ever I should come to this exposing of my things!" "Madam, you shall have justice done, as sure as my name is Hockin.
Gentlemen and ladies, if you are not all asleep, how would you like to be treated so?
Because the weather is a trifle warm, there you lie like a parcel of Mexicans.