was pretty well known throughout the Golden Gate Hotel that the Hon.
Mr. Paul Hathaway had arrived from Sacramento and had received a
"spontaneous ovation."

Meantime the object of it had dropped into an easy-chair by the window
of his room, and was endeavoring to recall a less profitable memory.
The process of human forgetfulness is not a difficult one between the
ages of eighteen and twenty-six, and Paul Hathaway had not only
fulfilled the Mayor's request by forgetting the particulars of a
certain transfer that he had witnessed in the Mayor's office, but in
the year succeeding that request, being about to try his fortunes in
the mountains, he had formally constituted Colonel Pendleton to act as
his proxy in the administration of Mrs. Howard's singular Trust, in
which, however, he had never participated except yearly to sign his
name. He was, consequently, somewhat astonished to have received a
letter a few days before from Colonel Pendleton, asking him to call and
see him regarding it.

He vaguely remembered that it was eight years ago, and eight years had
worked considerable change in the original trustees, greatest of all in
his superior officer, the Mayor, who had died the year following,
leaving his trusteeship to his successor in office, whom Paul Hathaway
had never seen. The Bank of El Dorado, despite Mrs. Howard's sanguine
belief, had long been in bankruptcy, and, although Colonel Pendleton
still survived it, it was certain that no other president would succeed
to his office as trustee, and that the function would lapse with him.
Paul himself, a soldier of fortune, although habitually lucky, had only
lately succeeded to a profession--if his political functions could be
so described. Even with his luck, energy, and ambition, while
everything was possible, nothing was secure. It seemed, therefore, as
if the soulless official must eventually assume the duties of the two
sympathizing friends who had originated them, and had stood in loco
parentis to the constructive orphan. The mother, Mrs. Howard, had
disappeared a year after the Trust had been made--it was charitably
presumed in order to prevent any complications that might arise from
her presence in the country. With these facts before him, Paul
Hathaway was more concerned in wondering what Pendleton could want with
him than, I fear, any direct sympathy with the situation. On the
contrary, it appeared to him more favorable for keeping the secret of
Mrs