I doubt if I've heard one of his things mentioned but 'The Heathen
Chinee.' He has been here so long they regard him as a mere native.
If I am advancing my reputation in the East I am making it much
faster than if I depended upon the local reputation alone. San
Francisco is remarkably human."

"When I first came here--it seems a lifetime ago!--I never saw an
Eastern magazine of the higher class and rarely a book. I believe you
have done as much to wake them up as even the march of time. They read
newspapers if they won't read their own poor little _Overland_. And
you are popular personally and inspire a sort of uneasy emulation. You
are a sort of illuminated bridge. Now tell me what your new paper is
about."




XXI


A while later they came to the old Mission Dolores, long ago the
center of a flourishing colony of native Indians, who, under the
driving energy of the padres, manufactured practically every simple
necessity known to Spain. There was nothing left but the crumbling
church and its neglected graveyard, alone in a waste of sand. The
graves of the priests and grandees were overrun with periwinkle, and
the only other flower was the indestructible Castilian rose. The
heavy dull green bushes with their fluted dull pink blooms surrounded
by tight little buds, were as dusty as the memory of the Spaniard in
California.