Vietnam or Thailand ? Vote for the TOP Country of the Week !
Updated: June 23, 2025
"Of course Pat Calhoun would wish to outdo Abe Ruef," said Frank. "That's only to be expected. He's had close to 2500, I reckon." "Not quite," Aleta referred to the printed sheet. "Your paper says 2370 veniremen were called into court. That's what money can do. If he'd been some poor devil charged with stealing a bottle of milk from the doorstep, how long would it take to convict him?"
He was staring off across the Exposition site, toward the Golden Gate, where a great ship, all its sails spread, swam mysteriously luminous with the sunset. "It's beautiful," he said, a catch in his voice. "It's like life ... coming home in the end ... after long strivings with tempest and wave. I wonder " he turned to her slowly, "Aleta, will it be like that with us?"
Street cars were running. Passengers were carried free until the first of May. Patrick Calhoun was trying to convert the cable roads into electric lines in spite of the objection of the improvement clubs. He was negotiating with the Supervisors for a blanket franchise to electrize all of his routes. "And he'll get it, too," Aleta told Frank as they dined together.
It looked quite as it did before the fire. One would have found it difficult to believe that this new city with its towering, handsome architecture, had lain, a few years back, the shambles of the greatest conflagration history has known. On Christmas eve Frank and Aleta went down town to hear Tetrazzini sing in the streets.
The Saturday Magazine's considering it." Miss France smiled deprecatingly. "I have high hopes," she said. "I need the money." "It will give you prestige, too," Frank told her, but she shook her head. "Norah hasn't signed her name to it," Aleta disapproved. "Just because a friend, a well known writer in Carmel, has fixed it up for her a little." "It doesn't seem like mine," the girl remarked.
For years thereafter Frank was haunted by the wraiths of vain conjecture morbid questionings of what might have occurred if he had caught the train for Monterey that afternoon. For he was not to seek Aleta at Carmel. An official of the Exposition Company met Frank on the street. They talked a shade too long. Frank missed the train by half a minute.
Aleta rose. "This is election night," she said; "let's go down and watch the returns." They did this, standing on the fringe of a crowd that thronged about the newspaper offices, watching, eager, but patient, the figures which were flashed on a screen. The crowd was less demonstrative than is usual on such occasions.
"Norah France was found dead in her room at Carmel this morning. Suicide probably. Empty vial and a letter.... The Carmel authorities haven't come through yet." Frank began to dress hurriedly. Again the telephone rang. Wire for him. Should they send it up? No, he would be down in a minute. The telegram was from Aleta. It read: "Am returning noon train. See you at my apartment six P.M."
"Why shouldn't I?" "Don't Aleta." "But, why not?" He was silent. But his eyes were on her, pleadingly. "Would you care, Frank? Would you care at all?" "You know I would," he spoke half angrily. The girl traced patterns with her fork upon the table cloth. On May 21, the United Railway Company received a franchise to electrize any of its street-car routes, "where grades permitted."
One evening at her apartment Frank met a young woman named France, a fragile, fine-haired, dreamy sort of girl, and he was not surprised to learn that she wrote poetry. "Norah's been working as a telephone operator," explained Aleta. "She's written a story about it the working girl's wrongs.... Oh, not the ordinary wail-and-whine," she added hastily. "It's real meat. I've read it.
Word Of The Day
Others Looking