"We'll try this," he said. "It's been built since I was here last year. Great Jimmy, but how the town has grown! I'm mighty near lost in it. I remember this old plaza, though. There's the City Hotel, across. There's the old custom-house, too; that adobe building, with the flagpole in front of it, where the flag was raised in Forty-six, by the Navy. Well, let's go in."
They entered. The place was crowded.
"Yes, sir; I can give you one room, with two beds in it, upstairs," informed the clerk at the counter. "It's positively all we have, and you're lucky to get that."
"What's the tariff?" queried Mr. Adams.
"Rates are twenty-five dollars a week, each, for bed; twenty dollars a week for board."
Mr. Adams shook his head, and looked at Charley.
"I'm afraid we'll have to try elsewhere," he said. "Let's go across the street."
"City Hotel is full; you can't get even blanket room," declared the clerk. "The Frémont Hotel, down on the water-front, charges the same as we do, and supplies fleas for nothing. If you don't want the room, stand aside. Next!"
"But aren't your rates pretty high?" queried Mr. Adams, puzzled.
"High, my friend?" retorted the clerk. "Do you know where you are? You're in San Francisco, where people dig gold in the streets. And do you know what rent we pay, for this building? One hundred and ten thousand dollars a year, my friend. The Eldorado tent-building next to us rents at $40,000 the year; it measures exactly fifteen by twenty-five feet. Out here, gentlemen, a hole in the ground rents for at least $250 a month. Last April there were but thirty houses in the whole town, and now there are 500."