the water the waiting gulls and men and women moved a little closer.

Breakfast over the fishermen turned to the expectant crowd and began
taking notice of the pitiful offerings of coin. Tin buckets, newspapers,
bags, rags and even scooped hands were held down, each containing such
coin as the owner possessed, and in return came bountiful supply of
fish. A fine, fat crab for which your market man would charge you forty
cents was sold for ten. Beautiful, fresh sand-dabs, but an hour or two
out of the water, were five cents a pound, while sea bass, fresh cod,
mackerel, and similar fish went at the same price. Small fish, or white
bait, went by quantity, ten cents securing about half a gallon. Smelt,
herring, flounder, sole, all went at equally low prices, and as each
buyer secured his allotment he went hurrying off through the mist, as
silently as the floating gulls. When these were all supplied the rest of
the fish and crabs were taken up to the wharf and put on the counters of
the free market, where they were sold at prices most tempting.

Shrimps, alive and active, crayfish, clams, squid and similar sea food
was in profusion and sold at prices on a parity with that of the fish.
As the day wore on the early buyers were replaced by those who knew of
the free fish market and came to get good supplies for their money. Here
were boarding-house keepers, unmistakable anywhere, Bohemians in hard
luck who remembered that they could get good food here at a minimum of
price, and came now while on the down turn of the wheel. As a human
interest study it was better than a study of fish. Fishermen's Wharf is
where the independent fishermen bring their catches to San Francisco,
but it is not where the city's great supply comes in. To see that we had
to go along the docks until we came to the Broadway wharf where
Paladini, the head of the fish trust, unloads his tugs of their tons and
tons of fish. It is not nearly so interesting to look at, but it gives a