s pockets bulging with
sweetmeats and inferior cigars, trousers of light blue, a silk hat
like a reflector, and a varnished wand. A goodly steamer guarded my
one flank, panting and throbbing, flags fluttering fore and aft of her,
illustrative of the Dromedary and patriotism. My other flank was covered
by the ticket-office, strongly held by a trusty character of the Scots
persuasion, rosetted like his superior and smoking a cigar to mark the
occasion festive. At half-past, having assured myself that all was well
with the free luncheons, I lit a cigar myself, and awaited the strains
of the "Pioneer Band." I had never to wait long--they were German and
punctual--and by a few minutes after the half-hour, I would hear them
booming down street with a long military roll of drums, some score of
gratuitous asses prancing at the head in bearskin hats and buckskin
aprons, and conspicuous with resplendent axes. The band, of course,
we paid for; but so strong is the San Franciscan passion for public
masquerade, that the asses (as I say) were all gratuitous, pranced for
the love of it, and cost us nothing but their luncheon.

The musicians formed up in the bows of my steamer, and struck into
a skittish polka; the asses mounted guard upon the gangway and the
ticket-office; and presently after, in family parties of father, mother,
and children, in the form of duplicate lovers or in that of solitary
youth, the public began to descend upon us by the carful at a time; four
to six hundred perhaps, with a strong German flavour, and all merry as
children. When these had been shepherded on board, and the inevitable
belated two or three had gained the deck amidst the cheering of the
public, the hawser was cast off, and we plunged into the bay.

And now behold the honorary steward in hour of duty and glory; see me
circulate amid crowd, radiating affability and laughter, liberal with
my sweetmeats and cigars. I say unblushing things to hobbledehoy girls,
tell shy young persons this is the married people's boat, roguishly
ask the abstracted if they are thinking of their sweethearts, offer
Paterfamilias a cigar, am struck with the beauty and grow curious about
the age of mamma's youngest who (I assure her gaily) will be a man
before his mother; or perhaps it may occur to me, from the sensible
expression of her face, that she is a person of good counsel, and I
ask her earnestly if she knows any particularly pleasant place on the
Saucelito or San R