The story provides little tangible information about the narrator. What can the reader deduce about the narrator, and what are the implications of this for the narrator’s portrayal of other characters?

Critics sometimes number notable authors such as Mark Twain and Kate Chopin as belonging to the local color school of American writing. Choose a short story by one of these authors and compare their approach to Harte’s.

Bret Harte is often described as a “regionalist” rather than a “realist,” though both literary movements were interested in verisimilitude. How does this story reflect Literary Realism and how does it differ?