The principal parlor of the New Golden Gate Hotel in San Francisco,
fairly reported by the local press as being "truly palatial" in its
appointments, and unrivaled in its upholstery, was, nevertheless,
on August 5, 1860, of that startling newness that checked any
familiarity, and evidently had produced some embarrassment on the
limbs of four visitors who had just been ushered into its glories.
After hesitating before one or two gorgeous fawn-colored brocaded
easy-chairs of appalling and spotless virginity, one of them seated
himself despairingly on a tete-a-tete sofa in marked and painful
isolation, while another sat uncomfortably upright on a sofa. The
two others remained standing, vaguely gazing at the ceiling, and
exchanging ostentatiously admiring but hollow remarks about the
furniture in unnecessary whispers. Yet they were apparently men of
a certain habit of importance and small authority, with more or
less critical attitude in their speech.

To them presently entered a young man of about five-and-twenty,
with remarkably bright and singularly sympathetic eyes. Having
swept the group in a smiling glance, he singled out the lonely
occupier of the tete-a-tete, and moved pleasantly towards him. The
man rose instantly with an eager gratified look.

"Well, Paul, I didn't allow you'd remember me. It's a matter of
four years since we met at Marysville. And now you're bein' a
great man you've"--

No one could have known from the young man's smiling face that he
really had not recognized his visitor at first, and that his
greeting was only an exhibition of one of those happy instincts for