lly to order by people of
intelligence.

Thence he drove through miles and miles of orange groves, so large that
the numerous workmen go about their work on bicycles. Even here in the
country, the roadsides were planted with palms and other ornamental
trees, and gay with flowers. Abruptly he came upon a squalid village of
the old regime, with ugly frame houses, littered streets, sagging
sidewalks foul with puddles, old tin cans, rubbish; populous with
children and women in back-yard dressing sacks--a distressing reminder
of the worst from the older-established countries. And again, at the end
of the week, he most unexpectedly found himself seated on a country-club
verandah, having a very good time, indeed, with some charming specimens
of the idle rich. He talked polo, golf, tennis and horses; he dined at
several most elaborate "cottages"; he rode forth on glossy, bang-tailed
horses, perfectly appointed; he drove in marvellously conceived traps in
company with most engaging damsels. When, finally, he reached Los
Angeles again he carried with him, as standing for California, not even
the heterogeneous but fairly coherent idea one usually gains of a single
commonwealth, but an impression of many climes and many peoples.

"Yes," said Baker, "and if you'd gone North to where I live, you'd have
struck a different layout entirely."

V

There remained in Bob's initial Southern California experience one more
episode that brought him an acquaintance, apparently casual, but which
later was to influence him.

Of an afternoon he walked up Main Street idly and alone. The exhibit of
a real estate office attracted him. Over the door, in place of a sign,
hung a huge stretched canvas depicting not too rudely a wide
country-side dotted with model farms of astounding prosperity. The
window was filled with pumpkins, apples, oranges, sheaves of wheat,
bottles full of soft fruits preserved in alcohol, and the like. As
background was an oil painting in which the Lucky Lands occupied a
spacious pervading foreground, while in clever perspectives the Coast
Range, the foothills, and the other cities of the San Fernando Valley
supplied a modest setting. This was usual enough.

At the door stood a very alert man with glasses. He scrutinized closely
every passerby. Occasionally he hailed one or the other, conversed
earnestly a brief instant, and passed them inside. Gradually it dawned
on Bob that this man was acting in the capacity of