After that, he had taken a food contract for a gang of railroad
navvies on the transcontinental.

After that, of course, the whole world was open to him.

He came down to Mariposa and bought out the "inside" of what had been
the Royal Hotel.

Those who are educated understand that by the "inside" of a hotel is
meant everything except the four outer walls of it--the fittings, the
furniture, the bar, Billy the desk-clerk, the three dining-room
girls, and above all the license granted by King Edward VII., and
ratified further by King George, for the sale of intoxicating
liquors.

Till then the Royal had been a mere nothing. As "Smith's Hotel" it
broke into a blaze of effulgence.

From the first, Mr. Smith, as a proprietor, was a wild, rapturous
success.

He had all the qualifications.

He weighed two hundred and eighty pounds.

He could haul two drunken men out of the bar each by the scruff of
the neck without the faintest anger or excitement.

He carried money enough in his trousers pockets to start a bank, and