“No,” retorted Windham.  He suffered Lick to lead him to the bar.  Will O’Brien, a shrewd-faced merry Irishman, took their orders.  He and Flood had bought an interest in Virginia City ... “a few fate only, but it’s goin’ t’ make us rich, me lad,” he said enthusiastically as he set their glasses out upon the bar.  “We’ll all be nabobs soon.  Ain’t that the God’s truth, Mr. Ralston?”

“Sure, my boy,” a deep voice answered heartily.  Windham turned and saw a man of forty, tall, well-molded, with a smiling forceful countenance.  He seemed to smack of large affairs.

Benito sipped his liquor, listening absorbedly while Ralston rattled off facts, figures, prospects in connection with the Comstock lode.

“The Nevada mines will pay big,” Benito heard him tell a group of bearded men who hung upon his utterances.  “BIG!  You can bet your bottom dollar on it.  If you’ve money, don’t let it stay idle.”

Benito bade his friend good-bye and went out, thinking deeply.  He wondered what Alice would say if....

Nesbitt of The Bulletin interrupted his musing.  “Heard the news, Benito?  We’re to have a stock exchange next month.”

“The brokers are opposed to it.  They don’t want staple values, because, now and then, they can pick up a bargain or drive a hard trade.  And they can peddle ‘wildcat’ stocks to tenderfeet....  We must stop that sort of thing.”

“Quite so,” said Windham vaguely comprehending.  Nesbitt babbled on.  “There are to be forty charter members, with a fund of $2000.”

He took a pencil from his pocket.  Tapped Benito’s shirt front with it.  “Buy a little Gould and Curry....  I’ve just had a tip that it will rise.”  He hurried on.

* * * * *

Windham let his clients wait that afternoon.  He took a walk toward Twin Peaks on Market street.  That lordly, though neglected, thoroughfare began to make pretensions toward commercial activity.  Opposite Montgomery street was St. Ignatius Church.  Farther down toward the docks were lumber yards and to the west were little shops, mostly one-storied, widely scattered.  Chinese laundries, a livery stable or two.  The pavements were stretches of boardwalk interspersed with sand or mud, trodden into passable trails.  Down the broad center ran a track on which for years a dummy engine had labored back and forth, drawing flat cars laden with sand.  Now most of the sand hills were leveled above Kearny street.  Benito picked his way along the northern side of Market street till he came to Hayes.  There the new horse car line ran to Hayes park.  One was just leaving as he reached the corner, so he hopped aboard.  As the driver took his fare he nodded cordially.  Benito recognized him as a former client.

“Listen,” said the fellow, “you did me a good turn once, Mr. Windham.  Now I’ll return the compliment.”  He leaned nearer, whispered.  “Buy some Hale and Norcross mining stock.  I’ve got a tip straight from the president.  It’s going up.”