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Street and the other the old Plaza. Enormous screens of gilded ebony,
intricately carved and set with colored glass panes, divided the room
into three, and one of these divisions, in the rear part, from which
they could step out upon the balcony that commanded the view of the
Plaza, they elected as their own.

It was charming. At their backs they had the huge, fantastic screen,
brave and fine with its coat of gold. In front, through the
glass-paned valves of a pair of folding doors, they could see the roofs
of the houses beyond the Plaza, and beyond these the blue of the bay
with its anchored ships, and even beyond this the faint purple of the
Oakland shore. On either side of these doors, in deep alcoves, were
divans with mattings and head-rests for opium smokers. The walls were
painted blue and hung with vertical Cantonese legends in red and
silver, while all around the sides of the room small ebony tables
alternated with ebony stools, each inlaid with a slab of mottled
marble. A chandelier, all a-glitter with tinsel, swung from the centre
of the ceiling over a huge round table of mahogany.

And not a soul was there to disturb them. Below them, out there around
the old Plaza, the city drummed through its work with a lazy, soothing
rumble. Nearer at hand, Chinatown sent up the vague murmur of the life
of the Orient. In the direction of the Mexican quarter, the bell of
the cathedral knolled at intervals. The sky was without a cloud and
the afternoon was warm.

Condy was inarticulate with the joy of what he called their
"discovery." He got up and sat down. He went out into the other room
and came back again. He dragged up a couple of the marble-seated
stools to the table. He took off his hat, lighted a cigarette, let it
go out, lighted it again, and burned his fingers. He opened and closed
the folding-doors, pushed the table into a better light, and finally
brought Travis out upon the balcony to show her the "points of
historical interest" in and around the Plaza.

"There's the Stevenson memorial ship in the centre, see; and right
there, where the flagstaff is, General Baker made the funeral oration
over the body of Terry. Broderick killed him in a duel--or was it
Terry killed Broderick? I forget which. Anyhow, right opposite, where
that pawnshop is, is where the Overland stages used to start in '49.
And every other building that fronts on the Plaza, even this one we're
in now, used to be a gamblin