y were full, too,--and with what a queer
mixture of people!

The Americans were evidently as widely varied as on board ship. The
best dressed were smooth-shaven, quiet men in white shirts, black ties,
and well-fitting broadcloth and polished boots--the cool, professional
gamblers, as Charley somehow guessed. He had seen their like in St.
Louis, and on the ship. The others wore mainly the regulation
Californian costume of flannel shirt, etc.,--and with them it seemed to
be the fashion not to shave at all. Such whiskers! But every nation
under the sun appeared to be represented. Why, it was better than any
geography book.

Everybody seemed to be in a great hurry, acting as if should they
linger anywhere more than a minute they would be missing something.
There was something in the cool, windy air, fresh from the lively bay,
that made Charley himself throw out his chest and step lively. The
talk, right and left, was of the jerky, impatient type, and in terms of
dollars--dollars, dollars, thousands of dollars. Nobody acted poor,
all walked and talked gold; one would have thought that the very dirt
was gold--and as he trudged briskly, following the lead of Mr. Grigsby,
Charley saw people grubbing on hands and knees, with knives, in the
very street. Yes, he saw some boys, no older than he, doing this, and
one with a grin showed him half a handful of golden specks and dirt
mixed, that he evidently had scraped up!

The streets had no sidewalks, and in spots were thick with dust, blown
by gusts of wind. Mr. Grigsby plainly enough knew where he was going,
for at last he led into a vacant square, which was the plaza. A sign
on a long, two-and-a-half story wooden building, unpainted, said:
"Parker-house. Board and lodging." Under the sign Mr. Grigsby
stopped, and eased his arms.

"We'll try this," he said. "It's been built since I was here last
year. Great Jimmy, but how the town has grown! I'm mighty near lost
in it. I remember this old plaza, though. There's the City Hotel,
across. There's the old custom-house, too; that adobe building, with
the flagpole in front of it, where the flag was raised in Forty-six, by
the Navy. Well, let's go in."

They entered. The place was crowded.

"Yes, sir; I can give you one room, with two beds in it, upstairs,"
informed the clerk at the counter. "It's positively all we have, and
you're lucky to get that."

"What's the tariff?" queried Mr. Adams.

"Rates are twen