?"

"Yes," said Bob.

"Ever been there before?"

"No."

"Great country! If you listen to all the come-on stuff you may be
disappointed--at first."

"How's that?" asked Bob, highly amused. "Isn't the place what it's
cracked up to be?"

"It's more," asserted Baker, "but not the same stuff. The climate's
bully--best little old climate they've made, up to date--but it's got to
rain once in a while; and the wind's got to blow; and all that. If you
believe the Weather in the Old Home column, you'll be sore. In two years
you'll be sore, anyway, whenever it does anything but stand 55 at night,
72 at noon and shine like the spotlight on the illustrated songster. If
a Californian sees a little white cloud about as big as a toy balloon
down in the southeast corner he gets morose as a badger. If it starts to
drizzle what you'd call a light fog he holes up. When it rains he
hibernates like a bear, and the streets look like one of these populous
and thriving Aztec metropoli you see down Sonora way. I guess every man
is privileged to get just about so sore on the weather wherever he
is--and does so."

"You been out there long?" asked Bob.

"Ever since I graduated," returned Baker promptly, "and I wouldn't live
anywhere else. They're doing real things. Don't you run away with any
notions of _dolce far nientes_ or tropical languor. This California gang
is strictly on the job. The bunch seated under the spreading banana tree
aren't waiting for the ripe fruit to drop in their mouths. That's in the
First Reader and maybe somewhere down among the Black and Tans--"

"Black and Tans?" interrupted Bob with a note of query.

"Yep. Oilers--greasers--Mexicans--hidalgos of all kinds from here to the
equator," explained Baker. "No, sir, that gang under the banana tree are
either waiting there to sandbag the next tourist and sell him some real
estate before he comes to, or else they're figuring on uprooting said
piffling shrub and putting up an office building. Which part of the
country are you going to?"

"Near White Oaks," said Bob.

"No abalone shells for yours, eh?" remarked Baker cryptically. He
glanced at Welton. "Where's your timber located?" he asked.

"Near Granite," replied Bob;--"why, how the devil did you know we were
out for timber?"

"'How did the Master Mind solve that problem?'" asked Baker. "Ah, that's
my secret!"

"No, that doesn't go," said Bob. "I insist on knowing; and what was that
abalone shell remark?"