shbrook had
given a commission for three hundred yards of painted canvas, to be cut
up and framed as occasion and space required, in Rushbrook's new
hotel in San Francisco; how the gray-bearded foreigner near him was an
accomplished bibliophile who was furnishing Mr. Rushbrook's library from
spoils of foreign collections, and had suffered unheard-of agonies from
the millionaire's insisting upon a handsome uniform binding that should
deprive certain precious but musty tomes of their crumbling, worm-eaten
coverings; how the very gentle, clerical-looking stranger, mildest of a
noisy, disputing crowd at the other table, was a notorious duelist and
dead shot; how the only gentleman at the table who retained a flannel
shirt and high boots was not a late-coming mountaineer, but a well-known
English baronet on his travels; how the man who told a somewhat florid
and emphatic anecdote was a popular Eastern clergyman; how the one
querulous, discontented face in a laughing group was the famous humorist
who had just convulsed it; and how a pale, handsome young fellow, who
ate and drank sparingly and disregarded the coquettish advances of the
prettiest Diva with the cold abstraction of a student, was a notorious
roue and gambler. But there was a sudden and unlooked-for change of
criticism and critic.

The festivity had reached that stage when the guests were more or less
accessible to emotion, and more or less touched by the astounding fact
that every one was enjoying himself. This phenomenon, which is apt to
burst into song or dance among other races, is constrained to voice
itself in an Anglo-Saxon gathering by some explanation, apology, or
moral--known as an after-dinner speech. Thus it was that the gentleman
from Siskyou, who had been from time to time casting glances at Somers
and his fair companion at the head of the table, now rose to his feet,
albeit unsteadily, pushed back his chair, and began:--

"'Pears to me, ladies and gentlemen, and feller pardners, that on
an occasion like this, suthin' oughter be said of the man who got it
up--whose money paid for it, and who ain't here to speak for himself,
except by deputy. Yet you all know that's Bob Rushbrook's style--he
ain't here, because he's full of some other plan or improvements--and
it's like him to start suthin' of this kind, give it its aim and
purpose, and then stand aside to let somebody else run it for him. There
ain't no man livin' ez hez, so to speak, more fast hors