I touched the Bostonian on the arm.  “Let’s go to the Exposition,” I suggested.  “We’ve seen everything here.”

“There’s no need to hurry!  We’ve all the afternoon before us.”  He edged a little closer to the old man, about whom a crowd was gathering.

“In the good old days of forty-nine,” rang out again and I glanced nervously at my companion.  “We didn’t have any dipper-dapper policemen making mistakes.”  He snapped his fingers in the officer’s face.  “We had good red-shirted miners who knew their business.”

The policeman moved uneasily and handed back the papers.  “I guess they’re all right,” he acknowledged.  “The law doesn’t seem to touch you.”

“Touch me!  Well, I guess not!” The officer moved off and the old man returned to his bench.  Before I realized my companion’s intention, we were seated beside the miner.  He was still muttering maledictions on the head of the Irish policeman.

“The scoundrel!” He dug his stick into the gravel path.  “Had the nerve to arrest me!  Me, who strung up Jenkins in the first Vigilante Committee, and Casey and Cora in the second.”

“You must have come here in early days,” remarked the Bostonian.

“Early days,” echoed the miner, “well, I guess I did.  I’m a forty-niner.”  He straightened himself proudly and looked to see the effect of his words.

“I think we had better go.”  Again I touched the Antiquary’s arm but he gave no heed to my signal.

“There must have been some stirring times here in the days of the gold rush.”

“You bet there were,” agreed the forty-niner, “and the entire history of San Francisco was made around this Plaza.  Here were built the first hotel, the first school-house, the first bank; within a stone’s throw the first Protestant sermon was preached, the first newspaper was printed and the first post office was opened.  It was through the Plaza that Sam Brannan ran with a bottle of yellow dust in one hand, waving his hat with the other and shouting, ’Gold! gold! from the American River!’ It was here that the big gambling houses sprang up, where fortunes were made and lost in a night, and here the first Vigilance Committee met and executed justice.”  The old man paused for breath.

I was on the edge of the bench ready for flight.  All my good work of the last two days was rapidly being undermined.  I heard again the skeptic’s contemptuous tone of yesterday.  “It’s either before the fire” or “in the good old days of forty-nine.”

“We—­we must go,” I stammered, “it’s getting very late.”  The Bostonian looked at his watch.  “Not three o’clock yet.”  He leaned back comfortably.  “You ought to be interested in this.  Your grandfather was a forty-niner.”

I looked at him searchingly.  I ought to be interested!  I, who cherished every memory of pioneer days!  I, who had bitten my lips a dozen times that afternoon, and was glorying in the tact and strength of mind which had avoided this period of our history!