dream, a nightmare. Thus Kant,
the great philosopher, believed. Obsessed by the idea, he paused before
a book-store. Its show window prominently displayed Francisco Stanley's
latest novel.

Frank missed the mellow wisdom of his father's counsel seriously. He
entered the shop, found a volume of Kant and scanned it for some moments
till he read:

"This world's life is only an appearance, a sensuous image of the pure
spiritual life, and the whole of Sense is only a picture swimming before
our present knowing faculty like a dream and having no reality
in itself."

Acting upon a strange impulse, he bought the book, marked the passage
and ordered it sent to Aleta.

A week after Ruef's confession the trial of Mayor Schmitz began. It
dragged through the usual delays which clever lawyers can exact by legal
technicality. Judge Dunne, sitting in the auditorium of the Bush Street
synagogue, between the six-tinned ceremonial candlesticks and in front
of the Mosiac tablets of Hebraic law, dispensed modern justice.

Meanwhile the Committee of Seven sprang suddenly into being. A morning
paper announced that Schmitz had handed the reins of the city over to a
septette of prominent citizens. Governor Gillette lauded this action.
But Rudolph Spreckels disowned the Committee. Langdon and Heney were
suspicious of its purpose. So the Committee of Seven resigned.

At this juncture the Schmitz trial ended in conviction of the Mayor
which was tantamount to his removal from office. It left a vacancy
which, nominally, the Supervisors had the power to fill. But they were
under Langdon's orders. Actually, therefore, the District Attorney found
himself confronted by the task of naming a new mayor.

Unexpectedly the man was found in Edward Robeson Taylor, doctor of
medicine and law, poet and Greek scholar. The selection was hailed with
relief. Frank hastened to the Taylor home, a trim, white dwelling on
California street near Webster. He found a genial, curly-haired old
gentleman sitting in a room about whose walls were thousands of books.
He was reading Epictetus.

Stanley found the new mayor likeable and friendly. He seemed a man of
simple thought. Frank wondered how he would endure the roiling passions
of this city's politics. Dr. Taylor seemed undaunted by the
prospect, though.

Without delay he was elected by the Supervisors. Then began the farcical
procedure of their resignations. One by one the new chief named good
citizens as their