Later in the day we went to the house of a friend of George Sterling’s, a composer, who sets his songs to music. There in a half dark room, full of flowers, and baskets filled to the brim with rose petals, we drank red wine. Curled up on a sofa I listened to the playing and singing of his songs. Now and then George would read out loud some new poem not yet published. That night we went and sipped absinthe in some low haunt. It is no use, Mr. Prohibition Agent, to come after me and ask me where that was, because I don’t know, and I’m quite sure George doesn’t remember. MONDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1921. San Francisco is rather proud of being built like Rome, on seven hills, and it certainly is effective. One street was so steep that a ladder was built onto the side walk to help one up. The cable cars go slipping perilously down, or crawling terrifyingly up. But the towns in this country that I have seen vary little in the way of buildings and streets. Their atmosphere varies.--San Francisco for instance, has that foreign cosmopolitan feeling that characterises New York. But whereas New York gets its atmosphere in ships from Europe, San Francisco brings it in from the Orient, and with it some of the mystery which New York has not. The temptation to me to board a ship and go to China is heart-breaking, and it seems so easy, so obvious. Only I can’t, because after five months of wandering the funds are low. I must return to New York, and work and work through the winter before me, to store up for the next adventure! MONDAY, OCTOBER 17, 1921. _Burlingame._ ONE DAY IN SAN FRANCISCO. Today Constance motored me into town, and we fetched up at 12:30 at the Dolores Mission. It was closed, and a formidable woman who opened the priest’s house door, refused to let us see a priest. Constance, undefeated and indignant, retreated to the grocer shop across the way and telephoned to a Bishop. It was equivalent to “Open, Sesame!” On second application the female watchdog melted away, and a priest appeared in her stead. He had an Irish name, and an Irish face, and he kindly showed us over the mission. This was founded in about 1770 by the Franciscan friars, hence the subsequent name of the town, San Francisco. The Church was built long after Spain had ceased to erect those glories of architecture that are conspicuous in Mexico. In the 16th Century labor was cheap, and the Church was rich. In the 18th Century the glory of God was chanted in a building of adobe (dried mud-bricks) white-washed. This simple building still stands, with its little whitewashed columns outside, like the entrance to a simple Colonial house. Around the Mission sprang up the native grass huts. Then with the gold-rush evolved the rough mining town, and that was the beginning of San Francisco. Before the earthquake the town was only 70 years old. But I am not writing a guide book!