ided into a series of booths,
occupied by representative characters of all the noted authors,
Shakespeare, Chaucer, Dickens, Irving, Scott, and many others. A grand
march every evening introduced the performances or receptions given at
the various booths, and was very colorful and amusing. My character was
the fortune-teller in the Alhambra, and my experiences were interesting
and impressive. My disguise was complete, and in my zodiacal quarters I
had much fun in telling fortunes for many people I knew quite well, and
I could make revelations that seemed to them very wonderful. In the
grand march I could indulge in the most unmannered swagger. My own
sister asked in indignation: "Who is that old man making eyes at me?" I
held many charming hands as I pretended to study the lines. One evening
Charles Crocker, as he strolled past, inquired if I would like any help.
I assured him that beauty were safer in the hands of age. A young woman
whom I saw weekly at church came with her cousin, a well-known banker. I
told her fortune quite to her satisfaction, and then informed her that
the gentleman with her was a relative, but not a brother. "How
wonderful!" she exclaimed. A very well-known Irish stock operator came
with his daughter, whose fortune I made rosy. She persuaded her father
to sit. Nearly every morning I had met him as he rode a neat pony along
a street running to North Beach, where he took a swim. I told him that
the lines of his hand indicated water, that he had been born across the
water. "Yes," he murmured, "in France." I told him he had been
successful. "Moderately so," he admitted. I said, "Some people think it
has been merely good luck, but you have contributed to good fortune. You
are a man of very regular habits. Among your habits is that of bathing
every morning in the waters of the bay." "Oh, God!" he ejaculated, "he
knows me!"

Some experiences were not so humorous. A very hard-handed, poorly
dressed but patently upright man took it very seriously. I told him he
had had a pretty hard life, but that no man could look him in the face
and say that he had been wronged by him. He said that was so, but he
wanted to ask my advice as to what to do when persecuted because he
could not do more than was possible to pay an old debt for which he was
not to blame. I comforted him all I could, and told him he should not
allow himself to be imposed upon. When he left he asked for my address
down town. He wanted to see me