“I know they'll not,” Tano retorted, emphatically.
In the afternoon, Clarence and Mercedes met them in Oakland, and together they crossed the bay.
And now on that same night as Doña Josefa looked from her bedroom window upon the lighted city, she noticed that a large mansion near by, was very brightly illuminated, and Mercedes told her that one of the railroad kings, who had killed the Texas Pacific, lived there, and was giving a “silver wedding” party to the elite of San Francisco. Doña Josefa sighed, and sat at the window to think.
Truly, San Francisco had been in a flutter for ten days past, and the “best society” had stretched its neck until it ached to see who got invitations for “The Great Nob Hill Silver Wedding Ball” of one of San Francisco's millionaires. Mrs. Grundy ascertained who were to be the best-dressed ladies, what their pedigree was, and how their money had been made, and then Mrs. Grundy went to the ball, too.
When all the elegance of San Francisco had arrived, nobly sprinkled with a Baron or two, and ornamented with a Lord and Lady and a Marquise or Count, the great millionaire proceeded to astonish his guests in the manner he had conceived to be most novel and startling.
The band struck up a wedding march, and Mr. Millionaire, with his wife leaning on his arm, proceeded to the last of an elegant suite of rooms, where, under a canopy of fragrant flowers, a mock marriage ceremony was to be performed. After conducting the blushing bride to the mock altar, and the ceremony being over, the millionaire thought he would treat his guests to what he imagined to be a real hymenean oration. He prefaced his homily with what he believed to be witticisms and quotations of his own. He then thought it was time to wax eloquent and didactic, above prejudices, truly large-minded.
“But let me read to you a short, telling lesson now,” he said, swelling with just pride; “I speak most particularly to the young men, to those who have yet their fortunes to make. Be not discouraged if you meet with hardships and trials. Go ahead and persevere. Look at all these luxurious appurtenances surrounding us! I might well say, look at this wealth! Look at this splendor! Well, ladies and gentlemen, sixteen years ago we were in Sacramento, so poor, that we had to put tin pans over our bed to catch the water that leaked through our roof, and keep our bed-clothes dry. I had not money enough to get a better roof over our heads,” and the millionaire looked around for applause, but none came, because the guests possessed the good taste, or, perhaps, bad, which their host lacked, and were pained and mortified; they did not see the good of waking up memories of unsavory poverty. The foreign nobility was not so proud, perhaps, as they had been at the hour of receiving an invitation to all this so very newly created splendor. But the rich man, still inflated with pride, hurriedly wound up his peroration as best he could, feeling vague misgivings that he had marred the eclat of his magnificent illumination shining over his costly furniture, by trying to rise above himself to make a high-minded, witty speech. “Be plucky, and persevering, and go ahead, as I did,” said he to close his oration, bowing to his foreign guests.
The company scattered in couples or in groups over the luxuriously furnished and richly decorated rooms, and Mrs. Grundy hurried about everywhere to catch the comments made by the grateful guests upon “the brilliant speech of their amiable host.” At the very first group she heard a young man say:
“Yes, I would be plucky and persevering if I had an associate in Washington with plenty of money to bribe people so that no other railroad could be built to start competition in California.”
“I could be plucky, too, if the Government had given me millions of money and more millions of acres to build two railroads, and which millions I never intended to pay back,” said another.