urchasing
right of your portrait."

"Oh, I'll pose very well as the 'Amelican' teacher of those little
Chinese butterflies fluttering after that kite. Aren't they attractive
in their lavender, pink, and blue sahms?" I said, as we seated ourselves
on the bench.

"To be honest, to be kind, to earn a little, to spend a little less,'"
he read from the face of the fountain standing against a clump of trees
whose soft foliage drooped caressingly over it. "Why, that's from
Stevenson's Christmas sermon. Look at that unappreciative brute! He
drank without reading a word!" exclaimed the man indignantly.

"Yes, but he feels the better for coming here. He received the
refreshment most needed and that is what Stevenson would have wished.
Some other may need and will receive the spiritual help."

"Why is it here?" he asked.

"Because Stevenson loved this place and came often to sit on the benches
and study the wrecked and drifting lives of the men who lounged in the
square."

"And the gilded ship on top with its full blown sails--that must
suggest his Treasure Island, doesn't it?"

"Yes, and also the Manila Galleon, that splendid treasure-ship ladened
with silk, wax and spices from the Philippines and China, which once
each year made its landfall near Cape Mendocino and followed the line of
the coast down to Mexico."

He leaned with arm outstretched along the back of the bench and surveyed
the park.

"This, you said, was the old Spanish Plaza. What was here then?"

"At first just a sweep of tawny sand-dunes, surrounded by scrub oak and
chaparral." I dropped my eyes to the gravel walk, that I might shut out
the emerald green lawns, and flowering shrubs. "Over the shifting
hillocks wandered a little minty vine bearing a delicate white and
lavender flower not unlike your trailing arbutus. It was from the
medicinal qualities of this plant that the little settlement was named
Yerba Buena, the good herb. Over there on the northwest corner where
that dingy Chinese restaurant now floats the flag of Chop Suey stood the
old adobe Custom House, the first building erected on the Plaza, and it
was in front of this that the Stars and Stripes were run up when General
Montgomery, who had arrived in the sloop-of-war Portsmouth, took
possession in the name of the United States."

"So that is where the square got its name--from the ship 'Portsmouth?'"
His voice rang with the joy of discovery.

"Yes, but the new name never completely rep