He threw himself once more into his chair and clasped his hands behind his head. "It is an astonishing fact," he said--"This--I was reading the history of the Kearney riots, only the other day. The commentator was very severe on the Irish and German element that imperilled the city for purely personal reasons; that was responsible for the most remarkable and reprehensible of all the State Constitutions. That was not quite thirty years ago. Whether any of these men, who are mainly of Irish or German descent, are the sons or grandsons of any of those old Sand-lot agitators I have no means of knowing; probably not, their fortunes were no doubt already in the making, and the founders had graduated from the class that went to sand-lot meetings and shouted, 'The Chinese must go.' But it is certainly one of the oddest evolutions in history that it should be the descendants of that foreign element alone that take any real interest in this city; that are ardent to reform it, beautify it; that are willing to devote their time and a good part of their fortunes to that end. So far, although I have met in the clubs many old gentlemen of charming manners and prehistoric descent--that is from '49, or even the more pretentious East and South; and, at all sorts of places, their sons--who are either building up new fortunes or spending old ones--there is not one, so far as my observation serves me, that has lifted a finger to fling off this octopus. Hofer says they have even ceased to grumble. Their incomes are assured. Some are merely well off, others immensely wealthy--with a sufficiency invested elsewhere. All can command about the same amount of luxury, however their establishments may vary in splendor. And nothing can exceed the luxury of their Clubs. The older men at least--and they are not so old--have subsided into a slothful content that makes them a cross between a higher sort of carnivorous animal and the tacit supporters of the criminals in power. These friends of mine, whose fathers may or may not have listened to Kearney in the Sand-lots, are worth the whole lot of your ancient aristocracy--hybrid, anyhow--and if I do 'hang out my shingle' here in San Francisco, they are the only ones I care anything about knowing. They are the only real Americans I have met, for that matter--according to your own standards--" He broke off abruptly and leaned forward, smiling at his companion. "I meant to ask you as soon as we got home to tell me all about your first great party in your beloved city, but I have been led away by my natural egotism. You were, by general acclaim, I fancy, the beauty of the evening. Did you enjoy it all as much as you expected?"