“It is bounded on the west by the Pacific Ocean, on the north by Golden Gate Strait and the Bay of San Francisco, on the east by the bay, and on the south by San Mateo County.” One would naturally expect a city bounded on the west by the Pacific Ocean to have a considerable water frontage, some nine thousand miles, in fact. This, however, is not quite the case; it is only the American guide-booker’s way of putting it. As a matter of fact, San Francisco is a most picturesque city of some three hundred thousand inhabitants, and it is spread over the bay shore and the adjacent hills to the extent of about twenty-seven thousand acres. It is the eighth city in size in the United States, and the third in commercial rank, but it is not jealous either of New York or Chicago. It is the capital of God’s country, and with that it is modestly content. A page advertisement of a magazine in the guide-book begins with the query: “Are you interested in God’s country?” It doesn’t quite say Heaven, but the implied analogy is obvious. Still, even San Francisco has to keep its end up, and it is just a little sore on the subject of earthquakes. “These,” says my guide-booker, “are of rare occurrence. For the past half century there are not known to have been more than half a dozen lives lost from the effects of earthquakes; while in the New England and Middle States and in the Mississippi Valley hundreds are killed annually by sunstroke, lightning, hurricanes, and tornadoes, in addition to the millions of dollars’ worth of property destroyed by tornadoes and blizzards.” Down east they say that the drink and other things you get in the West do all that these can do, and a bit over. This, of course, is mere jealousy; and to this San Francisco is as serenely indifferent as she is of Fate. She also seems to be indifferent to everything else. Even dollars. This doesn’t sound true, but it is. The splendid recklessness of the Argonauts of the fifties still glows in the blood of the true San Franciscan. Quite a short time ago a man worth a couple of million dollars—a comparative pauper in a place where they think nothing of paying three millions for a house—gambled every cent he had on the success of a certain more or less honest deal. A friend of his had interests the other way, and dumped down more millions to block the deal. He blocked it. They met at their club the evening after the smash, and conversed as follows: “Well, how goes it?” “D——d bad.” “In that—deal?” “Steal, I call it.” “How much?” “Whole caboodle! Want a janitor up yonder?” “Janitor—no. I want a nervy man to come in with me. Come?” “I’m there.” And now those two men are piling up millions together instead of betting them against each other. That’s San Francisco.