In the Bank Exchange saloon, where the city's powers in commerce,
journalism and finance were wont to congregate, King met, on a rainy
autumn afternoon, R.D. Sinton and Jim Nesbitt. They hailed him jovially.
Seated in the corner of an anteroom they drank to one another's health
and listened to the raindrops pattering against a window.
"Well, how is the auction business, Bob?" asked King.
"Not so bad," the junior partner of Selover and Sinton answered. "Better
probably than the newspaper or banking line.... Here's poor Jim, the
keenest paragrapher in San Francisco, out of work since the
_Chronicle's_ gone to the wall. And here you are, cleaned out by Adams &
Company's careless or dishonest work--I don't know which."
"Let's not discuss it," King said broodingly. "You know they wouldn't
let me supervise the distribution of the money. And you know what my
demand for an accounting brought ..."
"Abuse and slander from that boughten sheet, the Alta--yes," retorted
Sinton. "Well, you have the consolation of knowing that no honest man
believes it."
King was silent for a moment. Then his clenched hand fell upon the
table. "By the Eternal!" he exclaimed, with a sudden upthrust of the
chin.
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