day, which is one reason I'm so glad to find you just now."

"What's that, John?" inquired a cool, amused voice. McGlynn and I looked
around. A tall, perfectly dressed figure stood on the sidewalk surveying
us quizzically. This was a smooth-shaven man of perhaps thirty-five
years of age, grave faced, clean cut, with an air of rather ponderous
slow dignity that nevertheless became his style very well. He was
dressed in tall white hat, a white winged collar, a black stock, a long
tailed blue coat with gilt buttons, an embroidered white waistcoat,
dapper buff trousers, and varnished boots. He carried a polished cane
and wore several heavy pieces of gold jewellery--a watch fob, a
scarf-pin, and the like. His movements were leisurely, his voice low. It
seemed to me, then, that somehow the perfection of his appointments and
the calm deliberation of his movement made him more incongruous and
remarkable than did the most bizarre whims of the miners.

"Is it yourself, Judge Girvin?" replied McGlynn, "I'm just telling this
young man that he can't have the job of driving my little California
canaries for but one day because I've hired a fine lawyer from the East
at two hundred and seventy-five a month to drive my mules for me."

"You have done well," Judge Girvin in his grave, courteous tones. "For
the whole business of a lawyer is to know how to manage mules and asses
so as to make them pay!"

I drove to the beach, and speedily charged my wagon with as large a load
as prudence advised me. The firm of Howard Mellin & Company proved to
have quarters in a frame shack on what is now Montgomery Street. It was
only a short haul, but a muddy one. Nearly opposite their store a new
wharf was pushing its way out into the bay. I could see why this and
other firms clung so tenaciously to their locations on rivers of
bottomless mud in preference to moving up into the drier part of town.

I enjoyed my day hugely. My eminent position on the driver's
seat--eminent both actually and figuratively--gave me a fine opportunity
to see the sights and to enjoy the homage men seemed inclined to accord
the only wagon in town. The feel of the warm air was most grateful. Such
difficulties as offered served merely to add zest to the job. At noon I
ate some pilot bread and a can of sardines bought from my employers.
About two o'clock the wind came up from the sea, and the air filled with
the hurrying clouds of dust.

In my journeys back and forth I had