edecessor," he added scornfully. "There was great style in those days
--fine bars, lots of glass and mirrors and pictures worth thousands of
dollars. The doors were always open from eleven in the morning 'til
daylight the next morning, and a steady stream of people were pouring in
and out all the time. Everybody was there. There weren't no special
inducement to stay home nights, when your residence was a bunk on the
wall of a shanty and the fellers over you and under you and across the
room weren't even acquaintances. I got a pretty good room after awhile
in the Parker House"--he drew a small oblong south of the El Dorado--
"for a hundred dollars a week, but I didn't stay long."

"I should think not--at that price."

"Oh, it wasn't the price. One of my friends paid two hundred and fifty.
But you see it got pretty warm at the Parker House, that Christmas eve,
and so we all moved. They cleared away the hot ashes of the hotel and
built the Jenny Lind Theatre on the spot. That was the first big fire.
We had them right along after that, every few weeks. Six big ones in
eighteen months, with lots' of little ones in between."

"Then the last fire wasn't a new experience for you," the Bostonian
suggested.

"Lord, no! Rebuilding was a habit with us early San Franciscans. We
didn't begin to feel sorry for a man 'til he'd lost everything he owned
three times. The Jenny Lind Theatre went down six times and the seventh
building was sold for the City Hall. It stood right there"--he pointed
to the handsome new Hall of Justice--"until it went up in the last
fire."

"You are sure it wasn't the earthquake that finished it?" inquired the
skeptic.

"Certainly not," I flared. "The Relief Committee met there that morning
to lay their plans while the fires were raging south of Market Street."

He acknowledged defeat by changing the subject. "Was the old Spanish
Custom House here?" he asked, pointing to the western side of the
diagram.

"Yes," assented the miner, and he traced an oblong on the northern end,
"and just behind it, on Washington Street, was Sam Brannan's house. He
was the Mormon leader, you know, and brought a shipload of his followers
to establish a settlement in forty-six. He published our first
newspaper, the 'California Star,' in his house."

"Was it where that little green Chinese building with the bracketed
columns and turned-up eaves is?" I interposed.

"The telephone exchange, you mean? Exact spot. They used to