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Updated: June 16, 2025
At that day Montgomery Street was, as now, the business street, extending from Jackson to Sacramento, the water of the bay leaving barely room for a few houses on its east side, and the public warehouses were on a sandy beach about where the Bank of California now stands, viz., near the intersection of Sansome and California, Streets.
Sansome, like most dilettantes, was something of a phrase maker, and prided himself on the apt word. He found it here, to his own satisfaction, at least. "Her beauty is positively creamy!" he murmured to himself. At sight of her Keith crossed directly to her, full of a sudden, engaging, tender solicitude. "How are you feeling now, honey?" he inquired. "Quite recovered? All right now?"
It happened on this day that Nan Keith had refused an invitation to ride with Ben Sansome, but had agreed as a compromise to give him a cup of tea late in the afternoon. Nan's mood was latterly becoming more and more restless. It was an unconscious reflection of the times, unconscious because she had no real conception of what was going on.
As ill luck would have it, and as such coincidences often come about in the most perverse fashion, Keith had, down the street, met some malicious fool who had dropped a laughing remark about Sansome. It was nothing in itself. Ordinarily, Keith would have paid no attention to it. To-day it clashed with his mood.
She rather carelessly indicated a seat to Mrs. Keith, and remarked to Keith that he was to sit next herself. Otherwise the party distributed itself. Ben Sansome promptly annexed the chair next to Nan, and started in to make himself agreeable. A complete freemasonry obtained among all the party. There was a great deal of shouting back and forth, from one end of the table to the other.
Neither wanted her to grasp the situation if it could be avoided: Mrs. Sherwood from genuine good feeling, Sansome because of the social awkwardness and bad taste. Besides, he felt that his presence at such a scene would be a very bad beginning for himself. "No, you're not going," Keith was insisting; "you don't realize what a celebration this is!
Of these Campi's, in Clay street below Sansome, was the most noted, and the primitive style of serving combined with his excellent cooking brought him fame. All of these places, or at least restaurants with these names, are still in existence. Jule's, the Fly Trap, the St. Germain and the Cosmos laid claim to distinction through their inexpensiveness, up to the time of the fire.
The shifting sand-dunes on the outskirts were beaten motionless and sodden by the onslaught of consecutive storms; the southeast trades brought the saline breath of the outlying Pacific even to the busy haunts of Commercial and Kearney streets; the low-lying Mission road was a quagmire; along the City Front, despite of piles and pier and wharf, the Pacific tides still asserted themselves in mud and ooze as far as Sansome Street; the wooden sidewalks of Clay and Montgomery streets were mere floating bridges or buoyant pontoons superposed on elastic bogs; Battery Street was the Silurian beach of that early period on which tin cans, packing-boxes, freight, household furniture, and even the runaway crews of deserted ships had been cast away.
But at this Keith's attention was attracted. He sprang forward, seized Sansome's arm, insisted on introducing him to Nan, was over-effusive, over-cordial, buoyant. Both Sansome and Mrs. Sherwood were experienced enough to yield entirely to his mood.
"I have always carried a derringer and I can use it, too!" boasted Sansome, swinging his cane. Morrell, left alone, stood on the corner for some time diligently engaged in getting control of himself. He laughed a little. "Regular bally melodrama, conspiracy and all, right off the blood-and- thunder stage," said he. "Wonder if it works in real life? We'll see."
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