“I am the Emperor Norton. I will settle for this when I come into my throne.”
No one ever knew where he lived. He never asked to have anything sent home, and his purchases were never extravagant. His imagination was slow when it came to material things, or he may have been sly enough to know just how far to go. If he needed a little small change, he sold, at a discount, beautifully made out drafts on his future exchequer.
Many a time I have seen him walk into a restaurant with measured tread—he never hurried. The head waiter would rush up to greet him respectfully. The Emperor would ask:
“Is my food ready?”
“Right away, Emperor.”
He would be seated at the best table and given the best the house afforded. Having finished, he would walk out majestically without paying, of course. The Emperor Norton never got out of his part.
This could never have happened in the East. In Concord, Massachusetts, people would have lifted their eyebrows and given him food and raiment as if he were a tramp, but indulged him in his whimsies—never! In New York, those smart society women who send their daughters out upon Fifth Avenue to beg money for various charities would most certainly have had the Emperor Norton put in an institution for the insane.
Chapter IV: On Being a Tenderfoot
North of California
Twenty miles from Water,
Thirty miles from Mail,