"Walk in, gentlemen," said a suave-looking individual who was standing at the door. "Call for what you like. Everything's free here. Free lunch, free drinks, free cigars; walk in and try your luck."
"'Walk into my parlor, sez the spider to the fly,'" was Bill's ironical comment upon this polite invitation. "Walt," he continued, a moment later, "I'm 'feared we throw'd our money away on that Chinee. Here's grub for nothin'." If they had only known it, the person they were looking for was inside that gambling den at that very moment. After rambling about until they were tired, the two companions looked up a place in which to get a night's lodging—a luxury which cost them seventy-five cents apiece for the temporary use of a straw mattress, a consumptive pillow, and a greasy blanket. After making the most frugal breakfast possible, it was found that their joint cash would provide, at the farthest, for only one meal more. The case began to look desperate.
They were sitting on the sill of the wharf, silently ruminating on the situation, when the booming of a cannon announced the arrival of a steamer which had been signaled an hour earlier from Telegraph Hill. A swarm of people was already setting toward the plaza. The movement of a crowd is always magnetic, so Walter and Bill followed on in the same direction.
When within two blocks of the plaza they saw a long zigzag line of men and boys strung out for that distance ahead of them, some standing, some leaning against a friendly awning, some squatted on the edge of the plank sidewalk, while newcomers were every moment lengthening out the already long queue.
"What a long tail our cat's got!" was Bill's pithy remark. "Be they takin' the census, or what?"
It was learned that all these people were impatiently waiting for the opening of the post-office, but how soon that event was likely to happen nobody could tell. So the men smoked, whistled, chaffed every late arrival, and waited.
Waiting for the opening of the mail.—Page 160.
On the instant Walter was struck with a bright idea. Charley had never written him one word, it is true; but as it was ten to one everybody in the city would be at the post-office during the day, this seemed as likely a place as any to meet with him. Shoving Bill into a vacant place in the line, Walter started toward the head of it, staring hard at every one, and being stared at in return, as he walked slowly along. When nearing the head, without seeing a familiar face, a man well placed in the line sang out, "I say, hombre, want a job?"
"What job?"