How great was the hold that Ralston had on the hearts and minds of men could only be illustrated by the passion of grief under which the whole city bent. His death was looked on as a common calamity. No spectacle has ever been witnessed in modern times such as his funeral presented. By common consent, business of every kind was suspended in San Francisco. You might say that the population of the city of more than 150,000 inhabitants turned out en masse. The proudest and the humblest touched shoulders at his grave. Such tribute was never paid to any potentate or prince. There were even some who found it convenient to make an exhibition of immoderate sorrow who might have been more fittingly employed elsewhere. I once heard a story of a French gentleman who had suffered a domestic bereavement. A friend met him shortly after and tendered the customary condolences. “Ah! My poor wife! Yes, it was indeed a great loss!” sighed the Frenchman. “I was at your house during the funeral,” continued the sympathetic friend, “and was deeply touched by your manifestations of grief.” “Ah! You saw me at the house,” exclaimed the bereaved Gaul. “Many thought that fine. But you should have seen me at the grave. There I raised hell.” Very much in the same way, there was one man at Ralston’s obsequies conspicuous for his ostentatious sorrow, who was more responsible for his downfall than anyone else and profited largely by his death. But after the funeral he was able to speak of the tragic event with much fortitude and a certain degree of complacency. Ralston’s death, he said, was extremely opportune--in fact, the best thing that could have happened, for it made easy going for everyone. But nothing can be more true than the cynical words that Shakespeare puts into the mouth of Marc Antony. The evil a man does lives after him. The good is buried with his bones. The city went about its business, forgot its sorrow, which is necessary and proper, unless the world is to be draped with perpetual mourning weeds, forgot much of the great services Ralston rendered California; although to this day, among the old-timers and their descendants his name still stirs a thrill. But all his human weaknesses have been remembered and handed down, duly magnified, to posterity. Not only that, but his memory has been assailed by accusations of the gravest nature, relating to the failure of the Bank of California. These charges reached me in Kentucky, and as they did not proceed from an authoritative source and, moreover, seemed totally inconsistent with the character of my old friend, I made a special visit to the Pacific Coast to investigate the circumstances immediately preceding and associated with his death, for the better satisfaction of myself and of the world at large. CHAPTER XXXVII. TESTIMONY OF EYE-WITNESSES AND EXPERTS REFUTES STORY THAT WM. C. RALSTON TOOK HIS OWN LIFE.