"Are they the only classes allowed? Then I speak now for the purchasing right of your portrait."
"Oh, I'll pose very well as the 'Amelican' teacher of those little Chinese butterflies fluttering after that kite. Aren't they attractive in their lavender, pink, and blue sahms?" I said, as we seated ourselves on the bench.
"To be honest, to be kind, to earn a little, to spend a little less,'" he read from the face of the fountain standing against a clump of trees whose soft foliage drooped caressingly over it. "Why, that's from Stevenson's Christmas sermon. Look at that unappreciative brute! He drank without reading a word!" exclaimed the man indignantly.
"Yes, but he feels the better for coming here. He received the refreshment most needed and that is what Stevenson would have wished. Some other may need and will receive the spiritual help."
"Why is it here?" he asked.
"Because Stevenson loved this place and came often to sit on the benches and study the wrecked and drifting lives of the men who lounged in the square."
"And the gilded ship on top with its full blown sails—that must suggest his Treasure Island, doesn't it?"
"Yes, and also the Manila Galleon, that splendid treasure-ship ladened with silk, wax and spices from the Philippines and China, which once each year made its landfall near Cape Mendocino and followed the line of the coast down to Mexico."
He leaned with arm outstretched along the back of the bench and surveyed the park.
"This, you said, was the old Spanish Plaza. What was here then?"