formed have been many and close.  We formerly celebrated our annual meetings and invited men of note.  Our guests included Generals Howard, Gibbons, and Miles, the LeContes, Edward Rowland Sill, and Luther Burbank.  We enjoyed meeting celebrities, but our regular meetings, with no formality, proved on the whole more to our taste and celebrations were given up.  When I think of the delight and benefit that I have derived from this association of clubbable men I feel moved to urge that similar groups be developed wherever even a very few will make the attempt.

In 1879 I joined many of my friends and acquaintances in a remarkable entertainment on a large scale.  It was held in the Mechanics’ Pavilion and continued for many successive nights.  It was called the “Carnival of Authors.”  The immense floor was divided into a series of booths, occupied by representative characters of all the noted authors, Shakespeare, Chaucer, Dickens, Irving, Scott, and many others.  A grand march every evening introduced the performances or receptions given at the various booths, and was very colorful and amusing.  My character was the fortune-teller in the Alhambra, and my experiences were interesting and impressive.  My disguise was complete, and in my zodiacal quarters I had much fun in telling fortunes for many people I knew quite well, and I could make revelations that seemed to them very wonderful.  In the grand march I could indulge in the most unmannered swagger.  My own sister asked in indignation:  “Who is that old man making eyes at me?” I held many charming hands as I pretended to study the lines.  One evening Charles Crocker, as he strolled past, inquired if I would like any help.  I assured him that beauty were safer in the hands of age.  A young woman whom I saw weekly at church came with her cousin, a well-known banker.  I told her fortune quite to her satisfaction, and then informed her that the gentleman with her was a relative, but not a brother.  “How wonderful!” she exclaimed.  A very well-known Irish stock operator came with his daughter, whose fortune I made rosy.  She persuaded her father to sit.  Nearly every morning I had met him as he rode a neat pony along a street running to North Beach, where he took a swim.  I told him that the lines of his hand indicated water, that he had been born across the water.  “Yes,” he murmured, “in France.”  I told him he had been successful.  “Moderately so,” he admitted.  I said, “Some people think it has been merely good luck, but you have contributed to good fortune.  You are a man of very regular habits.  Among your habits is that of bathing every morning in the waters of the bay.”  “Oh, God!” he ejaculated, “he knows me!”