"But, my
child, that was only a mere fiction--a romance, of one Cervantes.
Believe me, of a truth there never was any such person!"
A SECRET OF TELEGRAPH HILL
I.
As Mr. Herbert Bly glanced for the first time at the house which
was to be his future abode in San Francisco, he was somewhat
startled. In that early period of feverish civic improvement the
street before it had been repeatedly graded and lowered until the
dwelling--originally a pioneer suburban villa perched upon a slope
of Telegraph Hill--now stood sixty feet above the sidewalk,
superposed like some Swiss chalet on successive galleries built in
the sand-hill, and connected by a half-dozen distinct zigzag
flights of wooden staircase. Stimulated, however, by the thought
that the view from the top would be a fine one, and that existence
there would have all the quaint originality of Robinson Crusoe's
tree-dwelling, Mr. Bly began cheerfully to mount the steps. It
should be premised that, although a recently appointed clerk in a
large banking house, Mr. Bly was somewhat youthful and imaginative,
and regarded the ascent as part of that "Excelsior" climbing
pointed out by a great poet as a praiseworthy function of ambitious
youth.
Reaching at last the level of the veranda, he turned to the view.
The distant wooded shore of Contra Costa, the tossing white-caps
and dancing sails of the bay between, and the foreground at his
feet of wharves and piers, with their reed-like jungles of masts
and cordage, made up a bright, if somewhat material, picture.
Pages:
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120