ars ago," he said. "I am John Gwynne. I doubt
if I shall ever love your California, but I am interested--this mass of
typical Europeans not yet Americanized--no common brain to work on, no
one set of racial peculiarities. And the law has me fast. I have become
frightfully ambitious. Talk about your Hamilton. I too walk the floor
till the small hours, repeating pages aloud. My Jap thinks me mad, and
no doubt is only induced to remain at his post by the excellence of my
tobacco, and the fact that his education is unhindered by much service.
While I am packing my own brain cells I infer that he is attending a
night school in St. Peter, for I hear him returning at all hours; and he
certainly shows no trace of other dissipation. We have never exchanged
ten sentences, but perhaps we act as a mutual stimulus."

"Don't you love California the least little bit?" asked Isabel,
wistfully. "Or San Francisco?"

"I have liked San Francisco too well upon several occasions--when I have
run down to spend the night at the Hofers--or have fallen in with Stone
on my way back from Berkeley, and been induced to stay over. Hofer and
that set seem to be content with living well; they are too serious for
dissipation. But Stone! Of course such men die young, but they are
useful in exciting the mind to wonder and awe. I don't think I am in any
danger of becoming San Franciscan to the point of feeding her insatiable
furnaces with all the fires of my being, but there is no denying her
fascination, and it has given me a very considerable pleasure to yield
to it. Whether I shall practise law there--change my base--I have not
yet had time to think it out."

"A country lawyer's is certainly no career."

"This is a good place to begin politically. San Francisco is too hard a
nut to crack at present. If I could become powerful in the State, the
Independent leader they need, then I might transfer my attentions to
that unhappy town. Even Hofer and all the rest of the devoted band seem
to be practically helpless since the re-election of the mayor. What
could I do--at present?"

"With a big legal reputation made in San Francisco you could travel very
fast and far. And you would be learning every thread of every rope,
become what is technically known as 'on'; and then when the time came--"

"I hate so much waiting! The shortest cut is here in the country. I
shall manage these men far better than Colton, who is the crudest type
of American politician. No