Chapter VI: Act II: Scene--the whiskey shop of the REASONING ANIMAL.--LIONEL

_asleep on a bed evidently borrowed from some boarding-house--since it is several feet too short for him_.--MAY _engaged in peeling potatoes.--Enter_ REASONING ANIMAL.

REASONING ANIMAL. "My daughter! I see you are passionately in love with LIONEL. Therefore, as I know him to be a fine young fellow, you must never see him more." (_Enter_ COMIC YANKEE.)

COMIC YANKEE. "Here's your new banjo, Miss MAY. Play us something comic and depressing."

MAY. "Thank Heaven, I can get at the banjo at last" (_Plays and is encored a dozen times._)

COMIC YANKEE. "Miss MAY, you must go and take a walk." (_She goes._) "LIONEL, you are well enough to leave this ranche. Get up and get."

LIONEL. "Farewell, beloved whiskey shop. Tell MAY I am going to leave her, and give her my sketches. If she once looks at them, she can love me no longer." (_Goes out to slow music. Re-enter_ MAY.)

MAY. "The wretch has left me without a word. I will bury his infamous sketches under the floor. They may frighten away the rats." (_Pulls up the floor and finds an immense nugget. Her father rushes in to see it. Two miners also see it and try to raise it. They are promptly seen and called by_ MAY, _who shoots one and holds the pistol pointed at the other, while the curtain slowly falls._)