e. On the following day Market street blazed with the slogan.

In New York, where he went from Washington, Frank heard echoes of that
speech. San Francisco's cause gained new and sudden favor. Frank found
the Eastern press, which hitherto had favored New Orleans, was veering
almost imperceptibly toward the Golden Gate.

He met many San Franciscans in New York. John O'Hara Cosgrave was
editing Everybody's Magazine, "Bob" Davis was at the head of the Munsey
publications, Edwin Markham wrote world-poetry on Staten Island, "in a
big house filled with books and mosquitoes," as a friend described it.
"Bill" and Wallace Irwin were there, the former "batching" in a flat on
Washington Square. All of them were glad to talk of San Francisco.

Charley Aiken, editor of Sunset Magazine, was with the boosters. Stanley
met him in New York. He had a plan for buying the publication from its
railroad sponsors; making it an independent organ of the literary West.
Things were looking up for San Francisco.

* * * * *

Frank was glad to get back. He had enjoyed his visit to the East. But it
was mighty good to ride up Market street again. It looked quite as it
did before the fire. One would have found it difficult to believe that
this new city with its towering, handsome architecture, had lain, a few
years back, the shambles of the greatest conflagration history
has known.

On Christmas eve Frank and Aleta went down town to hear Tetrazzini sing
in the streets. The famous prima donna faced an audience which numbered
upward of a hundred thousand. They thronged--a joyous celebrant, dark
mass--on Market, Geary, Third and Kearny streets. Every window was
ablaze, alive with silhouetted figures. Frank, who had engaged a window
in the Monadnock Block, could not get near the entrance. So he and Aleta
stood in the street.

"It's nicer," she whispered happily, "to be here among the people.... I
feel closer to them. As if I could sense the big Pulse of Life that
makes us all brothers and sisters."

Frank looked down at her understandingly, but did not speak. Tetrazzini
had begun her song. Its first notes floated faintly through the vast and
unwalled auditorium. Then her voice grew clearer, surer.

Never had those bustling, noisy streets known such a stillness as
prevailed this night. The pure soprano which had thrilled a world of
high-priced audiences rang out in a wondrous clarion harmony. It moved
many people to