"So all the legends of San Francisco are true?" said Gwynne, who preferred Stone to his wife. "Couldn't exaggerate if you tried. Wait till I show it to you. No blazed trail nor special policeman detailed to protect our precious skulls. I know the ropes and am not afraid to go anywhere." "How do you like your new work?" asked Isabel, hastily, not knowing what he might say next. "I should fancy that newspaper life would suit you." "Does! Never hit a job I liked as well. Jolly set of fellows. Up all night. What more could a fellow ask? No more aristocracy of art for me. I'm neither a Peters nor a Keith, and I wish I'd found it out ten years ago. If a man can make a good living, what in--ah, what on earth more can he want in a town that gives him the best things in the world to eat, the jolliest all-night life, the finest fellows in the world, the prettiest women to look at, a climate that puts new life into old horses--life's a dead easy game out here--when you don't develop too much ambition. Ambition? Nothing in that. Fellows are ingrates and idiots that go off to a cold-blooded place like New York, with a beastly climate, the moment they have made a little mark here. No philosophy in ambition. Only one life. Why not enjoy it--when your creditors will let you? And the money always comes somehow--comes easy, goes easy, and if we can't all be great, we can be happier here than anywhere else on earth. Here's to San Francisco--and perdition to him that calls it 'Frisco!" "So you have said good-bye to ambition?" asked Isabel, curiously. "I used to think you had a good deal." "So I had. Once I was younger and knew less. Perhaps if I had ever done anything cleverer than a few dashing skits for the Bohemian Club, and somebody had patted me hard enough on the back, I might have made an ass of myself and crossed the continent in the wake of so many that have never been heard of since." "I don't think you ever gave your creativeness a real chance. If you had shut yourself up in the country for a year--"