om which his loudest
calls seemed to come--ready, that is, except for one thing. He was now,
let us remember, at this beginning of the year 1899, not yet twenty-five
years old, not that by half a year, indeed, and a half year could mean,
as we have already seen, a great deal in his life. And he was a boy-man
with a record already behind him of achievement and a position already
in his hands of much responsibility and large salary. So he declared
that the time had now come for the carrying out of the decision he had
made in his college days of four years before. It was the little
matter, you will promptly guess, and guess correctly, of marrying the
girl of the geology department. He arrived in San Francisco the first of
February, 1899. He spent the next few days in Monterey, "the old Pacific
capital" of Stevenson's charming sketch, but of chief interest to Hoover
as the place where Lou Henry--that was her name--lived. And here they
were married at noon of Friday, February 10. At two o'clock they left
for San Francisco, and at noon the next day sailed for the empire of
China.

Into the sleepy, half Mexican, historic town on the curving sands of the
shores of the blue Bay of Monterey this swift, breathlessly swift, boy
engineer had come from distant Australia, by way of Marseilles and
London, had clutched up the beautiful daughter of the respected town
banker, and was now carrying her off to distant China, where she was to
live in all the state becoming the wife of the Director-General of Mines
of the Celestial Empire. It was a bit too much for the old Pacific
capital, which did not know--for it was not told--that the sudden
appearance of the meteor bridegroom had been preceded by many
astronomical warnings in the way of electric messages that came to the
prospective bride from Australia and London and New York. Anyway, it
wasn't quite fair to the town, which tries to maintain old Mexican
traditions, that go back to Spain, of a full assortment of festivities
incident to any proper marrying. But Monterey has long been reconciled
to this missed opportunity, and now reveals a just pride as the home
town of the woman who has played such an active role in the career of
her distinguished husband.

The hurrying couple, at least, had time for breath-taking--and
honeymoon--when once on board ship. For it is a month's voyaging from
San Francisco to China--or, at least, was then. They had for seat-mates
at table Frederick Palmer, t