y's menu. One of the number bears the choice to the kitchen and
superintends its preparation while the others engage in shrimps and
table-talk until it is served. If Jury's is overflowing with custom,
there are two other French restaurants alongside.

After luncheon we have a glimpse of the business district, following
back on the "two-bit" side of the street. At Clay we pass a saloon with
a cigar-stand in front and find a group listening to a man with bushy
hair and a reddish mustache, who in an easy attitude and in a quaintly
drawling voice is telling a story. We await the laugh and pass on, and I
say that he is a reporter, lately from Nevada, called Mark Twain. Very
likely we encounter at Commercial Street, on his way to the _Call_
office, a well-dressed young man with Dundreary whiskers and an aquiline
nose. He nods to me and I introduce Bret Harte, secretary to the
Superintendent of the Mint, and author of the clever "Condensed Novels"
being printed in the _Californian_. At California Street we turn east,
passing the shipping offices and hardware houses, and coming to Battery
Street, where Israelites wax fat in wholesale dry goods and the clothing
business. For solid big business in groceries, liquors, and provisions
we must keep on to Front Street--Front by name only, for four streets on
filled-in land have crept in front of Front. Following this very
important street past the shipping offices we reach Washington Street,
passing up which we come to Battery Street, where we pause to glance at
the Custom House and Post Office at the right and the recently
established Bank of California on the southwest corner of the two
streets.

Having fairly surveyed the legitimate business we wish to see something
of the engrossing avocation of most of the people of the city, of any
business or no business, and we pass on to Montgomery, crossing over to
the center of the stock exchange activities. Groups of men and women
are watching the tapes in the brokers' offices, messengers are running
in and out the board entrances, intense excitement is everywhere
apparent. Having gained admission to the gallery of the board room we
look down on the frantic mob, buying and selling Comstock shares. How
much is really sold and how much is washing no one knows, but enormous
transactions, big with fate, are of everyday occurrence. As we pass out
we notice a man with strong face whose shoes show dire need of patching.
Asked his name, I answer,