Betweenwhiles, as one crisis after another came and went, I was still constant to the idea and still felt my responsibility to the California, and from time to time as circumstances permitted, was strenuously endeavoring to reach the directors and stockholders. The president, in spite of his optimism, had fled from the Hotel St. Francis and gone to the home of his mother on Clay and Larkin streets. For the same reason he left there and went to the yards of the Fulton Iron Works where his yacht "Lady Ada" was laid up, got her off the ways and tacked over to Tiburon where he remained for some time. Finally word was received from him that the directors of the company would hold a meeting at the Blake and Moffitt Building on the corner of Eighth and Broadway, Oakland, on May 2, 1906. Who really located them, scattered as they were, and finally got them together, has remained an unexplained mystery. It must have been either the president or Chief Clerk Shallenberger. The late Mr. James Moffitt, a stockholder in the company and the owner of the building named, kindly secured for us two rooms in that building for an office. They were on the third floor facing Broadway and the location and the habitat of the company was disclosed by a canvas sign which, banner-like, hung upon the outer wall proclaiming this to be the office of the California Insurance Company. For furniture, there was a flat top desk and a typewriter (both secondhand) and the balance of the equipment was handmade, of ordinary lumber, by a local carpenter. There was not very much cash among those thus assembled, but, fortunately, the company had maintained a deposit in an Oakland bank and this was immediately available for checking purposes. First Meeting of the Board of Directors Quietly and almost silently the directors gathered. The only emotion apparent was that of the usual caution shown by men of large affairs who meet to face a crisis. The president called the meeting to order and stated that the object of the gathering was to inform the directors that the company was heavily involved in the conflagration which visited San Francisco on April 18, 19 and 20, 1906, that the amount of which obligations was at present unknown, that they overshadowed the resources of the company and that ways and means would have to be devised to finance the California through this crisis. The fire maps of the company were entirely destroyed and it was not advisable to open the safe in which the records of the company were kept until it was sufficiently cool to prevent danger of combustion. In light of these facts, it was impossible to immediately ascertain the actual amount of the company's obligations.