set I have already spoken of, and thoroughly well known to
those present. He cast a glance around the room, nodded to one or two of
the guests, and then walked to a side table and took up a newspaper. I
was conscious at once that a singular constraint had come over the other
guests--a nervous awkwardness that at last seemed to make itself known
to the man himself, who, after an affected yawn or two, laid down the
paper and walked out.

"That was a mighty close call," said one of the guests with a sigh of
relief.

"You bet! And that coffee-pot spill was the luckiest kind of accident
for Peters," returned another.

"For both," added the first speaker, "for Peters was armed too, and
would have seen him come in!"

A word or two explained all. Peters and the last comer had quarreled
a day or two before, and had separated with the intention to "shoot
on sight," that is, wherever they met,--a form of duel common to those
days. The accidental meeting in the restaurant would have been the
occasion, with the usual sanguinary consequence, but for the word
of warning given to my cousin by a passer-by who knew that Peters'
antagonist was coming to the restaurant to look at the papers. Had
my cousin repeated the warning to Peters himself he would only have
prepared him for the conflict--which he would not have shirked--and so
precipitated the affray.

The ruse of upsetting the coffee-pot, which everybody but myself thought
an accident, was to get him out of the room before the other entered. I
was too young then to venture to intrude upon my cousin's secrets, but
two or three years afterwards I taxed him with the trick and he admitted
it regretfully. I believe that a strict interpretation of the "code"
would have condemned his act as unsportsmanlike, if not UNFAIR!

I recall another incident connected with the building equally
characteristic of the period. The United States Branch Mint stood very
near it, and its tall, factory-like chimneys overshadowed my cousin's
roof. Some scandal had arisen from an alleged leakage of gold in the
manipulation of that metal during the various processes of smelting
and refining. One of the excuses offered was the volatilization of the
precious metal and its escape through the draft of the tall chimneys.
All San Francisco laughed at this explanation until it learned that a
corroboration of the theory had been established by an assay of the dust
and grime of the roofs in the vicinity of the Mi