The smile still lingered as a man came forward to adjust his score.  A keen, dynamic-looking man of middle years and an imposing presence.  Robert watched him just a little envious of his assured manner as he threw down a gold-piece.  While the fair cashier was making change he grinned at her.  “How’s my little girl tonight?” Reaching through the aperture, he chucked her suddenly beneath the chin.  Tears of mortification sprang into her eyes.  Impulsively Robert stepped forward, crowding the other aside none too gently.

“I beg your pardon,” he was breathless, half astounded by his own temerity.  “But—­can I be of any—­ah—­service?”

“Puppy!” stormed the elder man and stalked out haughtily.  The girl’s eyes encountered Robert’s, shining, grateful for an instant.  Then they fell.  Her face grew grave.  “You shouldn’t have ... really....  That was Isaac J. Kalloch.”

“Oh, the preacher that’s running for Mayor,” Robert’s tone was abashed.  “But I don’t care,” he added, “I’m glad I did.”

Once again the girl’s eyes met his, shyly.  “So am I,” she whispered.

CHAPTER LXIX

A NEW GENERATION

Isaac S. Kalloch was the labor candidate for mayor.  People said he was the greatest pulpit orator in San Francisco since Starr King.  His Sunday sermons at the Metropolitan Temple were crowded; as a campaign orator he drew great throngs.

Robert’s dislike for the man was mitigated by a queer involuntary gratitude.  Without that bit of paternal familiarity, which had goaded the young lawyer to impulsive protective championship, he and Maizie Carter, the little golden-haired cashier, might have found the road to comradeship much longer.

For comrades they had become almost at once.  At least so they fondly fancied.  Robert’s mother wondered why he missed so many meals from home.  The rococo restaurant gained a steady customer.  And the host of cavaliers who lingered in the hope of seeing Maizie home each evening diminished to one.  He was often invited into the vine-clad cottage at the top of Powell street hill.  Sometimes he sat with Maizie on a haircloth sofa and looked at Mrs. Carter’s autograph album.  It contained some great names that were now no longer written.  James Lick, David Broderick, Colonel E.D.  Baker and the still lamented Ralston, of whom Maizie’s mother never tired of talking.  He, it seems, was wont to give her tips on mining stocks.  Acting on them, she had once amassed $10,000.

“But I lost it all after the poor, dear man passed away,” she would say, with a tear in her eye.  “Once that fellow Mills—­I hate his fishy eyes!—­looked straight at me and said, ’See the poor old mud-hen’!”

She began to weep softly.  Maizie sprang to comfort her, stroking the stringy gray hair with tender, youthful fingers.  “Mother quit the market after that.  She hasn’t been near Pauper Alley for a year ... not since I’ve been working at the Mineral Cafe.  And we’ve three hundred dollars in the bank.”