“Ah, Henry,” she said sadly, “how often have I told you that the best plan may come to ruin in the market? It may not take much to start a boulder rolling down the mountain-side, but who is to tell it to stop when once it is set going?”
“I think,” said I, smiling, “that Mr. Knapp would ride the boulder and find himself in a gold mine at the end of the journey.”
“Perhaps. But you're not telling me what Mr. Knapp is doing.”
“He can tell you much better than I.”
“No doubt,” she said with a trace of sarcasm in her voice.
“And here he comes to do it, I expect,” I said, as the tall figure of the King of the Street appeared in the doorway opposite.
“I'm afraid I shall have to depend on the newspapers,” she said. “Mr. Knapp is as much afraid of a woman's tongue as you are. Oh,” she continued after a moment's pause, “I was going to make you give an account of yourself; but since you will tell nothing I must introduce you to my cousin, Mrs. Bowser.” And she led me, unresisting, to a short, sharp-featured woman of sixty or thereabouts, who rustled her silks, and in a high, thin voice professed herself charmed to see me.
She might have claimed and held the record as the champion of the conversational ring. I had never met her equal before, nor have I met one to surpass her since.
Had I been long in the city? She had been here only a week. Came from down Maine way. This was a dear, dreadful city with such nice people and such dreadful winds, wasn't it? And then she gave me a catalogue of the places she had visited, and the attractions of San Francisco, with a wealth of detail and a poverty of interest that was little less than marvelous.
Fortunately she required nothing but an occasional murmur of assent in the way of answer from me.