rusive kind
of indolence which suggests quite as much inward disquiet and unrest.
The shiftless lassitude of a gambler can never be mistaken for the
lounge of a gentleman. Even the brokers who loiter upon Montgomery
Street at high noon are not loungers. Look at them closely and you will
see a feverishness and anxiety under the mask of listlessness. They do
not lounge--they lie in wait. No surer sign, I imagine, of our peculiar
civilization can be found than this lack of repose in its constituent
elements. You cannot keep Californians quiet even in their amusements.
They dodge in and out of the theatre, opera, and lecture-room; they
prefer the street cars to walking because they think they get along
faster. The difference of locomotion between Broadway, New York, and
Montgomery Street, San Francisco, is a comparative view of Eastern and
Western civilization.

There is a habit peculiar to many walkers, which Punch, some years ago,
touched upon satirically, but which seems to have survived the jester's
ridicule. It is that custom of stopping friends in the street, to whom
we have nothing whatever to communicate, but whom we embarrass for no
other purpose than simply to show our friendship. Jones meets his friend
Smith, whom he has met in nearly the same locality but a few hours
before. During that interval, it is highly probable that no event of
any importance to Smith, nor indeed to Jones, which by a friendly
construction Jones could imagine Smith to be interested in, has
occurred, or is likely to occur. Yet both gentlemen stop and shake hands
earnestly. "Well, how goes it?" remarks Smith with a vague hope that
something may have happened. "So so," replies the eloquent Jones,
feeling intuitively the deep vacuity of his friend answering to his
own. A pause ensues, in which both gentlemen regard each other with an
imbecile smile and a fervent pressure of the hand. Smith draws a long
breath and looks up the street; Jones sighs heavily and gazes down
the street. Another pause, in which both gentlemen disengage their
respective hands and glance anxiously around for some conventional
avenue of escape. Finally, Smith (with a sudden assumption of having
forgotten an important engagement) ejaculates, "Well, I must be off"--a
remark instantly echoed by the voluble Jones, and these gentlemen
separate, only to repeat their miserable formula the next day. In the
above example I have compassionately shortened the usual leave-taking,
w