“Well,” said the Harvard Freshman, after the last tale was told, “I’m dead broke, and my brain seems to have gone out of business.” “I’m broke, and my heart’s broke, too,” said the Hero of Pago Bridge. “I’m broke, similar,” said the ex-medium, “and my nerves is a-sufferin’ from a severe disruption.” Coffee John thumped his red fist upon the table. “Bryce up, gents!” he exclaimed. “Remember there’s nothink in the ryce but the finish, as the dark ’orse says, w’en ’e led ’em up to the wire! They’s many a man ’as went broke in this ’ere tarn, an’ ’as lived to build a four-story ’ouse in the Western Addition; an’ they’s plenty more as will go broke afore the trams stop runnin’ on Market Street! This ’ere is a city o’ hextremes, you tyke me word for thet! It ain’t on’y that Chinatarn is a stone’s throw from the haristocracy o’ Nob Hill, an’ they’s a corner grocery with a side entrance alongside of every Methody chapel. It ain’t on’y that the gals here is prettier an’ homblier, an’ stryter an’ wickeder than anyw’eres else in Christendom, but things go up an’ darn every other wye a man can nyme. It’s corffee an’ sinkers to-dye an’ champyne an’ terrapin to-morrer for ’arf the people what hits the village. They’s washwomen’s darters wot’s wearin’ of their dimonds art on Pacific Avenoo, an’ they’s larst year’s millionaires wot’s livin’ in two rooms darn on Minnie Street. It’s the wye o’ life in a new country, gents, but they’s plums a-gettin’ ripe yet, just the syme, every bleedin’ dye, I give yer _my_ word! Good Lawd! Look at me, myself! Lemme tell yer wot’s happened to me in my time!” And with this philosophic introduction, Coffee John began THE STORY OF BIG BECKY When I fust struck this ’ere port, I was an yble seaman on the British bark _Four Winds_ art o’ Iquique, with nitrytes, an’ I was abart as green a lad as ever was plucked. When I drored the nine dollars that was a-comin’ to me, I went ashore an’ took a look at the tarn, an’ I decided right then that this was the plyce for me. So I calmly deserts the bark, an’ I ain’t set me foot to a bloomin’ gang-plank from that dye to this, syvin’ to tyke the ferry to Oakland. Me money larsted abart four dyes. The bleedin’ sharks at the sylor boardin’-’ouse charged five, a femile in a box at the “Golden West” darnce-hall got awye with three more, an’ the rest was throwed into drinks promiscus. The fourth dye in I ’adn’t a bloomin’ penny to me nyme, an’ I was as wretched as a cow in a cherry-tree. After abart twelve hours in “’Ell’s Arf-Acre” I drifted into a dive, darn on Pacific Street, below Kearney, on the Barbary Coast, as _was_ the Barbary Coast in them dyes! It was a well-known plyce then, an’ not like anythink else wot ever done business that I ever seen, “Bottle Myer’s” it was; per’aps yer may have heard of it? No?