o me, because of Bret Harte. That was true.

"Well," said the reporter, "Bret Harte claims California, but California
don't claim Bret Harte. He's been so long in England that he's quite
English. Have you seen our cracker factories or the new offices of the
'Examiner'?"

He could not understand that to the outside world the city was worth a
great deal less than the man. I never intended to curse the people with
a provincialism so vast as this.

But let us return to our sheep--which means the sea-lions of the Cliff
House. They are the great show of San Francisco. You take a train which
pulls up the middle of the street (it killed two people the day
before yesterday, being unbraked and driven absolutely regardless of
consequences), and you pull up somewhere at the back of the city on the
Pacific beach. Originally the cliffs and their approaches must have been
pretty, but they have been so carefully defiled with advertisements that
they are now one big blistered abomination. A hundred yards from
the shore stood a big rock covered with the carcasses of the sleek
sea-beasts, who roared and rolled and walloped in the spouting surges.
No bold man had painted the creatures sky-blue or advertised newspapers
on their backs, wherefore they did not match the landscape, which was
chiefly hoarding. Some day, perhaps, whatever sort of government may
obtain in this country will make a restoration of the place and keep it
clean and neat. At present the sovereign people, of whom I have heard so
much already, are vending cherries and painting the virtues of "Little
Bile Beans" all over it.

Night fell over the Pacific, and the white sea-fog whipped through the
streets, dimming the splendors of the electric lights. It is the use of
this city, her men and women folk, to parade between the hours of eight
and ten a certain street called Cairn Street, where the finest shops are
situated. Here the click of high heels on the pavement is loudest, here
the lights are brightest, and here the thunder of the traffic is most
overwhelming. I watched Young California, and saw that it was, at
least, expensively dressed, cheerful in manner, and self-asserting
in conversation. Also the women were very fair. Perhaps eighteen days
aboard ship had something to do with my unreserved admiration. The
maidens were of generous build, large, well groomed, and attired in
raiment that even to my inexperienced eyes must have cost much. Cairn
Street at nine o'clock