"Thanks, awfully," he murmured again.

Brauer dropped his eyes with a suggestion of unpleasant humility.

"I wish," flashed through Starratt's mind, "that I had asked for ten
dollars."

* * * * *

As Fred Starratt came down the steps leading from the California
Market with a bottle of oyster cocktails held gingerly before him he
never remembered when he had been less in the mood for guests. A
passing friend invited him to drop down for a drink at Collins &
Wheeland's, but the state of his finances urged a speedy flight home
instead. At this hour the California Street cars were crowded, but he
managed to squeeze into a place on the running board. He always
enjoyed the glide of this old-fashioned cable car up the stone-paved
slope of Nob Hill, and even the discomfort of a huddled foothold was
more than discounted by the ability to catch backward glimpses of city
and bay falling away in the slanting gold of an early spring twilight
like some enchanted and fabulous capital.

At Hyde Street he changed cars, continuing his homeward flight in the
direction of Russian Hill. He prided himself on the fact that he still
clung to one of the old quarters of the town, scorning the outlying
districts with all the disdain of a San Franciscan born and bred of
pioneer stock. He liked to be within easy walking distance of work,
and only a trifle over fifteen minutes from the shops and cafés and
theaters. And his present quarters in a comparatively new apartment
house just below the topmost height of Green Street answered these