In consequence the roofs of some houses were on the level
of the doorsteps of others, and were especially adapted to Billy's
performances. One afternoon, to the admiring and perplexed eyes of the
nursery, he was discovered standing on the apex of a neighbor's new
Elizabethan chimney, on a space scarcely larger than the crown of a hat,
calmly surveying the world beneath him. High infantile voices appealed
to him in vain; baby arms were outstretched to him in hopeless
invitation; he remained exalted and obdurate, like Milton's hero,
probably by his own merit "raised to that bad eminence." Indeed, there
was already something Satanic in his budding horns and pointed mask as
the smoke curled softly around him. Then he appropriately vanished,
and San Francisco knew him no more. At the same time, however, one Owen
M'Ginnis, a neighboring sandhill squatter, also disappeared, leaving San
Francisco for the southern mines, and he was said to have taken Billy
with him,--for no conceivable reason except for companionship.
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